


Let the Devil Out

by SpartanAltego



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mutants & Masterminds (Roleplaying Game), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Legacy Heroes, Merged Canon - Comic & Film, POV Multiple, Roleplay Logs, Roleplaying Character, Trans Character, Trans Daredevil, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2020-12-23 19:46:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 52,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21086807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpartanAltego/pseuds/SpartanAltego
Summary: "I... well. I am still, technically, Richard Fisk," she says- quiet, hesitant. "But... not really. It's not the name I would have picked... not the one that I go by, whenever I can. I'm... a girl."Elektra nods, knowing you can perceive it. "Pleasure to meet you."Expectations can cage your reality. The expectation was that the son of Wilson and Vanessa Fisk would be strong, brilliant, the creme of New York and heir to all its dark splendors. And most of all, ignorant of how he came into the privilege of that wealth. There was just a few minor hiccups to stymie that - the first, that she was born blind. The second, that she was never a boy. And the third - the inevitability that your children will realize you are not the person you want them to think you are.From these seeds, a new devil is born.





	1. Danse Macabre (Part I)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a log of a single-player roleplaying campaign run by myself, SpartanAltego, for a good friend of mine. As such, the perspectives will shift from second-person to third-person through the course of each entry, though I may eventually polish the complete work into a full fanfiction. Some content notes: our protagonist begins her story as a closeted trans-woman and as such is misgendered (albeit unknowingly) by several characters.
> 
> The setting is something of a gestalt of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and several comic and original elements. In some cases, the events of certain films or series (such as the Defenders, Daredevil S3, or Infinity War) happened in broad strokes but with details changed. More chapters will be forthcoming as arcs are completed. Please enjoy.

Once upon a time...

_A voice calls you from the depths - "awake, arise, or be forever fall'n!"_ _You fall. Through darkness, through nothing - the nothing you've lived in from the moment you became something, pushed from the womb of your mother into the larger womb of the earthly world._

_You burn - you cannot see the flames, but what is seen is rarely as important as what can be felt. Sensed. You smell the burning of cooked flesh, like when you placed a finger on a scalding hot stove. You feel yourself burn, and smoke, and curl up into the air as charcoal._

_Soon that will be all that is left of you._ _A lingering scent of smoke._

_You are descending. Vanishing. There is no light to save you here, in this emptiness, this womb of fire that so evilly parodies the womb of life and water that begot you._

_This is the womb that will end you._

_You cannot wake up. You can only fall, and fall, and fall-_

***********

You [wake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hkw4rw3ong) to the soft, low sensation of your bed rumbling - a minute vibration that begins at your lower spine and travels up to all your extremities. Your morning wake-up call, dispatched when your feet press into the carpet, feeling every one of the hundreds of threads of spider-silk in your soles. The vibration ceases, and a gentle ping echoes from the ceiling where your V.I. - virtual intelligence - addresses you in a scratchy, low British accent that reminds you of a middle-aged man, and a bit of a smoker.

Your mother had named it Zeus.

_"Good morning, young Richard. Did you sleep well?_

You follow the vibration with your ears, and obtain your picture of your room: exactly as you had left it going to bed the night before. Everything in its place - your cane, at your bedside. Although you cannot see, Zeus has pulled back the blinds to allow the sunlight and view of New York City into your room. You can feel its heat on your skin.

"Ugh..." Rich stirs awake, eyes blinking open on some inborn instinct, no matter that all she can see is a world of formless gray. The vibration is something she still hasn't quite gotten used to, since her mother made the 'executive decision' to have this bed installed. But for once she's grateful for the full-body friction, the distraction speeding up her efforts to shake off the memories of another unpleasant dream. Still, before too long she shakes her head minutely and swings her legs over the side to plant her feet on the carpet, in a firm gesture for her bedroom to 'stop'.

"Not really," she replies to the V.I. after a second, more than a little blearily. While hardly a person, Zeus was still the safest one in the household to complain to, but she realizes after a second she shouldn't say too much... she'd never been able to get over the feeling it was reporting to her mother. "Or, well. It was okay. Until you woke me up," she corrects, and lets out a small sigh.

She reaches down on instinct to grasp the cane, a measure of anxiety settling into relief as she grasps it even though it's never been missing that she can remember, and stands up, stretching her arms. Best not to laze around. "Can you let in a little less sun...? And, it's Rich. I've told you that already," she adds to Zeus, making her way to the door with a series of small taps. She knows it's futile, though. The name ID is outside her authority to change.

_"Name privileges are locked to Mrs. Fisk, I'm afraid. However, access to the blinds are not. One moment..."_ You can hear the curtains slide back over the bulletproof glass, reducing the light level. The room feels just a touch cooler, now. The room's lock unseals as you approach, the V.I.'s voice in your ear. _"Shall I guide you to the dining hall, Master Richard?"_

Rich relaxes a little as the feeling of sun on her skin recedes. Her mother always thought she was silly for being sensitive to this sort of thing, saying she was imagining things, but she's never been able to understand why. It's normal to feel this sort of differences, right? "No, thank you," she says, hearing the hiss of the lock unsealing and stepping forward. "I'm twelve years old, Zeus. I'm not a _kid_."

Waiting and listening a second for the door to open for her, she feels for the sides of the doorframe with her cane just to be safe, reangling herself and heading out into the hallway. Three steps forward, a ninety-degree turn to the side, and down the hall we go...

"Is Mom awake?" she asks the V.I. as she proceeds.

Zeus' voice follows you through the hall, using the intercom system reserved exclusively for him to relay messages to you - or alerts building-wide. He was the top-of-the-line model, installed four years ago as part of a breakthrough in Stark Industries' commercialization of the famous Tony Stark's simulated intelligence _Jarvis,_ providing "dumb" artificial intelligence for exorbitant costs. Costs affordable to your family, naturally.

_"Yes, Mrs. Fisk is in the dining hall. Your father is preparing breakfast and they are expecting you."_

Every life is made of routine. Yours begins like this, as it has for many years: breakfast with your parents. Morning lessons with a tutor - or infrequently, your mother - followed by some free time on your own. You stay inside sometimes. Other times, you tour the city, outside of the gilded and utterly familiar confines of the Presidential Hotel that has since become your family's personal Fisk Tower. In the evening, dinner. Repeat.

"Of course they are," Rich mutters with a sigh, proceeding on her way and hearing Zeus's voice pitch up and down incrementally as she passes by the speakers- ones she's never seen, but still knows they must be there. "Wonder if we're having omelettes again..."

Not that that's an unpleasant concept, per se, but her father's never gotten the hang of them in the same way as her mother, and the one time she'd tried to point it out her mother had taken her aside in the aftermath for a scolding. She's still not sure what the big deal is, but knows it's best not to hurt his feelings. After a half-minute or so of walking with the cane, not exactly rushing to the dining room, she feels the ambience change around her as she steps through another doorway at the end of the hall. "Morning," she says, not overly brightly. She's never been a morning person. "What's for breakfast?"

You recognize the notes of Bach's _Aria Da Capo_ chiming from a well-maintained vinyl, the steady piano beats trailing through the wide space, smacking against the walls - repainted recently. The glass of the windows to the outside, as bulletproof as your own, vibrates minutely, warmed by the sun and the heat of the burner where your father stands. Your mother sits in her usual seat at the dining table, sipping a glass filled with Japanese-imported chilled coffee - you can tell by the sound of her throat moving, the soft hum of satisfaction she gives with each sip. Yours is out, across from hers. Your father sits at the head of the table, between you both, every morning.

The comingling of scents and sounds is like a description of one of your mother's paintings. Impressionistic, a cloud, moist and dripping like rain against your face. Your father smells clean, wrapped in silken bedclothes and freshly washed by hot water and a soft shampoo he'd purchased at your suggestion. His previous selection bothered your sensitive nose. He works studiously, moving with mechanical practice tipped with confidence, and the smell of sizzling egg and herb arouses your stomach. Your mother smells of the coffee on her breath, and her own silken robe. Her hair brushes against her shoulders, down and straightened judging by the smell of slightly cooked hair wafting around her. She must be in a good mood, because her fingers are tapping smoothly to the beat of the music and she is perfectly relaxed in her seat.

They smell of each other, too.

There is a certain... homeliness, to being in this room, surrounded by these sensory experiences, Rich reflects, smiling at the sound of the piano music and humming along with it under her breath. Doing her best, at any rate. Singing lessons aren't something she's been quite brave enough to ask her parents about, but she'll get around to it eventually. She will. Her suspicions of breakfast are confirmed as she takes in that smell, though her smile falters a little as neither parent bothers to answer her question.

Well, that's all right. She tells herself they probably just can't hear her, with the sounds in each of their environments. They're old, she knows that they can't hear as well as she does. And, well, at least her mother seems to be in a good mood, Rich notes inwardly, as her hand bumps against the table and she stops quickly, reaching for her chair and finding it where she expects. She pulls it out, carefully, and sits across from her mother, nose wrinkling as the scent she'd been trying not to place asserts itself in her nose. _Gross._

"Good morning," she says with a somewhat uncomfortable smile. "Zeus said you were expecting me, Mom? Was that right, or was he just being dramatic?"

You can hear your mother start a bit as she recognizes your presence, quickly setting her drink down with a _plink_ against the smooth sturdiness of marble against glass. Her accent is a piece of your own, against your father's and the local flavor you've picked up over the years. Exotic, yet familiar. Rich, dark chocolate mixed with cherries. "Richard, darling. Good morning," you can hear her smile in her voice. "Yes, your father was just finishing up. I see you've come straight from bed."

There's a note of chiding - your appearance, although invisible to you, was visible to everyone else. Poise and perfection were important for your place as inheritor to the family legacy. That had been why you'd been drilled so strongly to master your...condition of blindness. Your mother had called it a harnessing of others' expectations of weakness into being your own strength.

_It's not like anyone else is here to see,_ Rich thinks inwardly at that admonition, but keeps her mouth shut rather than voice it out loud. Appearance is something her mother has always valued, the importance of which Rich herself has never been able to grasp. Even if some of her mother's comments, rare praise for looking handsome or manly in a formal outfit, did always fill her with a silent discomfort nonetheless.

"Right, sorry. With what he said, I thought I shouldn't keep you waiting," she says instead, schooling her face into a smile. "I can go back and change, if you want..." She doubts her mother will actually take her up on that, despite her chiding. Having these moments of 'family time' together are something Vanessa has often stressed as important, and it's unlikely she'll want such a distraction to cut into it.

_Then again_, she thinks with a frown, _Mom does at least as much scolding if I don't look like she wants..._ She waits for her father to come over with the food, ready to deliver a hopefully-appropriate word of praise once she doesn't need to shout to do so. "It smells good, Da- uh, Father."

Some days, your mother might indeed come across as though she'd prefer you to return to your room and clean up. But there must've been a playfulness to her reproach you had missed, or simply couldn't seem to attune to. Vanessa Fisk rarely let on more than she liked to. "Oh, it's _fine,_ Richie. The mussed look is cute."

Ah. She's teasing you, alright. Last night must've been..._pleasant,_ for your parents.

Your father's morning shoes slide against the polished floor, plates clinking as he balances the three in the crook of his muscular forearm, each with biceps as large as your head. He'd been able to pick you up with a single arm from birth to...your entire life. Even if you grew up as large and strong as him one day, you still think he could lift you. He walks tentatively, but with _weight_ you can feel travel up into your calves.

"I hope it tastes as well as it smells," your father replies in that low, slightly quaking voice of his. You never can tell if it's nerves or simply a way of talking with him. He seems confident enough most days. "I'm afraid my..._tongue_, isn't as suited as yours. Less sharp, perhaps."

Your mother is smirking. You can tell by the _silence._ Your father coughs awkwardly, setting the plates down and settling into his seat. "...Shall we pray?"

Rich promptly decides to cut off that thought about last night before her mind goes too far with it, shuddering internally. _Gross. Again._ But if it worked for them, she wouldn't complain. Out loud at least. "...Thanks, Mom," she says with a more genuine smile. It's probably not the response Vanessa will expect, but even if she's teasing, 'cute' is one of the nicer compliments that Richard gets doled out. She hears the slight tremors on the floor through the soles of her bare feet, from her father's weighty steps as he approaches, and nods obligingly at his explanation of the food, and the possible deficiencies with it.

_That's not very nice,_ she tells herself at that thought with a small frown. _I'm sure he tries his best with it._ The silence stretches on for a moment after he speaks, and Rich shifts awkwardly in her seat just as her father shows his own discomfort with a cough. "I'm sure it'll be good," she says, a moment later than might be warranted. "...And, oh. Of course." She nods quickly, carefully pushing her plate aside and folding her hands, bowing her head in silence. She'll follow along with either of their leads, but she lets her mind wander rather than focusing on prayer. She tried to participate in this ritual for a long time, but her interest has gradually waned ever since she realized that her parents could not in fact read her mind.

And that her prayers, even those delivered fervently alone in her room at night, had and would continue to go unanswered.

You entwine hands with your father, as does your mother, who reaches out to take your other hand. Together, you pray, led by the family patriarch. "Heavenly father. Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen."

The words come smoothly and without pause, but your father isn't speaking in his _authoritative_ voice you've sometimes heard used over the phone or in person with officials. It's a recitation. One of his rare lessons to you, passed on over the years in subtlety until one day you'd realized: sometimes, it was best to fake it, to make it. Your parents were not religious. But it was expected that you would be. That was a politically desirable attribute in a future senator.

Breaking hands - mother's soft, your father's calloused - the three of you engage in quiet breakfast. "Zeus," your mother calls. "Perhaps a news update?"

_"Immediately, ma'am."_ Replies the V.I., who tunes into a local radio station - the long running _Trish Talk,_ headed by Patricia Walker - once the child star Patsy - who speaks on the formation of a new police taskforce dedicated to the subduing of metahuman and costumed criminals within the city of New York, as part of a new initiative inspired by the success of the Sokovia Accords on an international scale. For some reason, your father chuckles.

"Amen," Rich finishes her prayer, echoing the last word in unison with her mother. She unclasps her hands from her parents', a bit reluctantly in her father's case- even if it's just a ritual like many others, it's still one of the few kinds of physical contact he allows without question between them. She sighs as her mind wanders to the wonderful concept of her future prospects, one of her mother's favorite topics, or at least something Vanessa is far more enthused about discussing than Rich ever has been.

Still, she can fake enthusiasm for it well enough, she's fairly sure. It's another thing that's important, and one that she has less trouble understanding than many others that her mother values. Her family's connected to many powerful people, influential people, the ones who make decisions and can make the ones her mother and father would want. Eventually, she'd become one of those. It's just the way of things.

It just would be nice if she had more of a choice.

She digs into the omelette to distract herself from the thoughts, the initial scorch to her tongue providing more of one than she'd intended. She devotes attention to blowing on the rest until she can actually sense it's at a safe temperature, though quietly, subtly, to try and avoid her mother's notice. It's not bad, she realizes after a few bites. Maybe he'd tried something different.

She zones out as they eat in silence, not much inclined to speak until her parents speak to her. No sense in risking breaking the peace by saying something she shouldn't, or getting a scolding for speaking with her mouth full. Her ears prick up slightly at the news report, but it's not of a particular interest... costumed criminals like that made for interesting stories to hear about, but they'd never been part of her own life.

"...Is something funny, Father?" she says after a second, blinking. That hadn't _sounded_ like a joke, what Ms. Walker had said, but maybe she'd missed some context or hidden meaning. It wouldn't be the first time.

"It's nothing," he replies quickly, the kind of quickly that says _it is something, but I shouldn't share._ "I find the idea of costumed vigilantes still active an...outdated one."

He wasn't wrong. New York's run of vigilantes had mostly come to an end, after the very public murders committed by the Punisher - Frank Castle. The man had shot up a newsroom and church, before being gunned down. All in pursuit of your father. In the wake of that event, public opinion built up by the likes of Spider-Man and Daredevil had plummeted. Your family had a complicated history with the latter.

But Daredevil hadn't been seen since before you were born. Another milestone of your birth. "You seem tired, Richie," your mother notes knowingly. "Restless night?" It's no secret. You've been plagued by recurring nightmares for years. One of your faults that your parents could not remedy, try though they may.

Rich purses her lips in a frown at the speediness of that denial, but decides her odds of learning more by prying aren't too good. "That's true," she says, mouth tightening as she recalls the more newsworthy vigilantes she remembers hearing about. It's scary to imagine a maniac like the Punisher could have been out for the blood of your family. Even if he was long gone, as was Daredevil, it wasn't a comforting thought to dwell on. "It does seem weird that they're still bothering to make a task force like that."

Some faint suspicions flit around her mind at that thought, but she discards them. "Ah." Rich starts slightly as her mother brings that up, caught off-guard by the question. "Y-yeah," she says, shifting awkwardly in her seat again. "No big deal. Just the same thing as ever. I won't let being tired... get in the way, don't worry, Mom," she tries to assure her, hoping she can make it sound convincing, and takes a drink of milk, ears pricked up in alert of whether she might try to pry further.

Your mother doesn't say anything, and in that silence can be read...anything. It's an unnerving experience. You can hear when a head is turned, if someone doesn't face your direction when they speak, as they sometimes did. Blindness made the sighted uncomfortable. But you can't hear her thoughts, or her face's dialogue. Thankfully, the silence is broken by your father. "It's an admirable thing. To persevere in the face of continued - hardships. When I was your age, I, too, had."

A pregnant pause. Your father's rich darkness grows...colder. "Dreams. They troubled me sorely." His head shifts, as he looks down to the table, then back up. You know he's looking at you. "Purpose eased the sharpness. And your mother..." the smile in his voice is something sincere and filled with depths you cannot begin to sense the end of. "Carried them away. Dreams can change. With time."

"When you no longer dream alone, is when your dream becomes reality," your mother's hand brushes against your wrist. "Remember. Whatever you experience in your sleep cannot touch you. Because _we_ are here. We are each other’s reality."

_That's really not as comforting as you might think, Mom,_ Rich thinks with a weary smile. The assurance that her dreams weren't real _is_ comforting- even if she knows that consciously, they can feel all too real, especially in the middle of the night, when she's thrown from horrifying dreamscapes into wakefulness and knowing she's alone. But the reality of her parents could get rather _too_ real, sometimes. Stiflingly so.

At least she can get away from them sometimes, in her own free time, but leaving the environment she knows to travel out in the city could be very scary in its own way, when she didn't know what to expect. Still... "I'll... remember that, to try and keep them away," she replies to her mother, hoping to sound grateful with her words. "Maybe they will change, eventually. I hope so," she adds, tilting her head in her father's direction, though more for his comfort than her own.

"...But I don't really think I'll meet anyone like Mom any time soon," she adds, lightly joking now. Her father's glowing opinions on her mother were something she knew well, and she doubts he'd value any other woman near as much. "Unless you've... got any tips for that?" A part of her does want to ask what his own dreams had been about- if they'd had anything in common with the ones that plague her own nights- but she feels the moment where it'd be appropriate to ask has passed.

Your parents chuckle, and your mother's hand brushes your wrist, trailing up to take your hand in her own. "The only tip we can give - honesty. Find someone who loves you for yourself, from the brightest flames to the darkest pits. Recognizing love is like recognizing art - everyone sees something different. But you'll know it best when you _feel_ it. _Hear_ it." She pauses. "Touch it."

"But you are right," your mother laughs, in that slightly faux-haughty way when you know she enjoys being your parent. "You'll never _quite_ find a woman like me."

***********

Outside, [the winter air](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45lNvNsdPLc) strikes you in the face like a slap from Saint Nicholas himself. The city smells cold, salt in the air from the ground, exhaust from all the hundreds of cars in just a block around you. Restaurants and street vendors' wares tempting you from your regimented diet. Twin bodyguards shepherd you on both sides into the vehicle, herding you as one might a prized cow into the barn, smelling of oil and pressed suits caging sweat. New hires.

You slip on a piece of ice unsalted, and a hand roughly reaches out to catch your forearm and halt your fall. The man mutters something to what he thinks is himself, but you catch it regardless - _"stuck babysitting the blind one"_ \- as you reorient.

Ahead, holding the door to your personal transport open, is your bodyguard, scent carried on the breeze. Iron, shaving cream, not a drop of dirt to be smelled. Meticulously clean, ever since you'd remarked once that his hands smelled funny. Almost like rare steaks. Benjamin Poindexter. He prefers it when you call him Dex. "Mister Richard," he greets you with the same polite, respectful tone he uses with your father and mother. Like you're already an adult. "Nice day for a drive."

You've learned you can't tell when Dex fibs to you. For some reason, he rarely cracks in voice or any of the other little tells people forget to guard because you're blind.

The transition from the warmth of their home to the slap in the face that is a New York winter is something she's learned ways to deal with, over the years- scarf over her mouth, bundling up in a coat and layers underneath- but it still takes a few seconds to get used to, for someone as in-tune with four of her senses as Rich is. Even with practice, though, the lack of the fifth one can become a major issue at times, and slipping on a patch of ice to fall into an instant of frantic, unsteady vertigo briefly makes it seem like it'll be one such.

The clutch on her arm, righting her and keeping her from a bad fall, is an immense relief, but the words of thanks on her lips die away as she catches the new bodyguard's words to himself. She ducks her head, pulling her scarf a little higher over her face to hide her expression. The arrival of someone she knows and knows well is a relief, after that unpleasant encounter, but she twitches slightly as soon as her driver opens his mouth.

"Mr. Poindexter," Rich replies, doing her best attempt at equal politeness. She's pretty sure he remembers _she_ prefers to be called something else, so she feels it's only fair. "Is it one? Really?" she replies, getting carefully into the seat behind him and closing the door, holding her cane between her legs as she buckles up. "Or do they just pay you too much to say otherwise?"

"You're gonna hurt my feelings," Dex replies. "You know I'm as honest with you as with anybody. Can't put a price on that." You hear him start the car and pull out onto the street. New York roads had a certain pebbly texture to them, like someone made a path purely out of teeth. You're driving on the mouth of the city that never sleeps. On the radio, some classical Christmas-time music plays. You know Dex prefers jazz, so clearly the station choice was for your benefit. He knows a lot about you, after all. "Concert, today?" He asks rhetorically. "There's a quartet playing in the Metropolitan Museum. Can get us there in time."

"That's true enough," Rich replies with a small smile, settling into the patterns of their company quickly and easily. She might have spent more time with him than either of her parents. Certainly more than with her father. _I don't know how much there is to hurt, though,_ she keeps to herself. That might be a step too far for teasing him.

Following the bumpy exit onto the streets, she blinks with pleasant surprise at the choice of music he puts on the radio, relaxing into her seat and moving a finger back and forth in time with the song. "Sounds good to me," she tells him cheerfully. "If you have to run any red lights to make it, don't worry. Not like I'm going to tell." She settles down as he drives her. "By the way, you _still_ haven't told me what you'd like for Christmas," she admonishes him gently, tone teasing as she does. "Planning on it any time soon? Or will I have to get creative?"

"I haven't celebrated Christmas my whole life, Richie. No reason to start now." You can hear the shrugging of the former FBI agent's shoulders.

According to him, he and your father bonded while Dex had guarded him after his release from prison, saving his life. When the conviction was overturned, Dex became the head of your family's security detail. He was your bodyguard for a reason. Benjamin Poindexter was feared as the man who slew the monster - the last enemy of the Punisher. "But hey, get creative if you want. Maybe we'll see how well you know me."

You feel the vehicle speed up, the rush of adrenaline as you recognize he is indeed speeding through traffic, horns honking dangerously close only to fade into the distance. Never had you been pulled over, not after the first time. Dex had simply greeted the officer, who had apologized and waved you on your way. That was power, in New York. "What about you?" He turns the question back. "What can Uncle Dex get you for Christmas?"

"I'm not saying you need to get a tree and tinsel, or come over and wear silly hats with us," Rich says with a smile. "I don't think they pay you enough for _that_. ...But if you're willing to let me give you something, I guess I can say that's good enough for now." She does have a couple ideas swirling around in her brain, but saying them out loud would ruin the surprise. She smirks to herself at the sounds of cars honking at them as he starts to speed. It's probably not fair for them to be doing things like this, but she _can_ enjoy the perks of an important family sometimes.

She starts at the question he asks of her in return. "...Oh. Hm." She probably should have expected he'd turn the question around on her, but it still catches her unaware. _A dress_ is the first traitorous thought that comes into her head, but she keeps her mouth clamped firmly shut lest that thought escape. She's more comfortable around him than her parents... even with how he is and what he's done, there's far fewer expectations to tie her down than with her mother... but there's some things she can't say even to him, she's pretty sure. Even so... _Maybe I could try something smaller._ "That depends. Would it be something my mom and dad would have to know about?"

There's another _silence._ You know those silences. It's when all the expression is on someone's face and you're not able to see it. When someone is weighing how to react to something you've said. "Oh, you're hitting _that_ stage of your life, huh?" He replies slowly, in the way that suggests a smirk. "I'm sure we could find you a boy, if that's what you're looking for. Get some experience in. And I could make sure they're discreet."

Dex has operated for the last year under the assumption that you are a gay young boy.

Feeling that silence come down between them, Rich starts to regret asking something that bold, not sure if he's going to feel the need to tell on her for asking. When she hears what he _actually_ has to say in response, however, the regret promptly doubles. "...Uhhh," she says, face going red. "That's. Nice of you to offer, Dex, but I'mmm not sure if I'm old enough to get too much of, uh, that kind of experience..." She coughs awkwardly, though a detail lost on her is how she sounds not unlike her father as she does it.

She can't quite dispel the thoughts that stirred up as easily as she would like, however, and she bites her lip. "...How would you find someone discreet, though, exactly? Hypothetically." She doesn't want to spur him on too much with this idea, but the general premise is one she can't help feeling could be helpful in not-fully-unrelated ways.

"Atta boy. Depends on the type of merch you're looking for," your chevalier replies easily. You can hear the slight _"heh"_ he makes as he reflects on your hypothetical question. Perhaps the hypothetical part more than the question. "In general? Best place in New York for under-the-table is Chinatown. You ever see that old movie?"

Rich sighs inwardly at the 'Atta boy', but avoids comment. It's not something she's by any means unused to, but it still stings no matter who she hears it from. "I don't _see_ a lot of movies, so no," she replies, rolling her blind eyes at the question. "I think it came up in one of my lessons, though. Something noir?" She quiets for a second, pondering. "Why is it the best place for being discreet?"

"Chinatown's like any other flavor of New York. Kind of its own breed, happens to be next to all these other tribes," he explains. "But it's not like the others otherwise. Chinatown don't _talk,_ 'cept to each other, and only if its about the locals. Don't much care if some rich boy looking for kicks comes down for some fun, unless some turf boss thinks they can get some leverage. And dirty business is their game. Don't want to ruin that rep by running your mouth unless you can stand to gain." Dex pauses. "And let's just say, spreading 'rumors' about you would be a mistake. A bad one. So, yeah, it's reliable. Wouldn't advertise who you are if we go down there, 'course, but it's easy to pass as nobody if you know how."

"...Huh." Rich processes that in silence for a second, frowning. It didn't sound _completely_ safe, but it could still be a more useful place than most she's heard about. "...But, if we went there and I _didn't_ let them know who I was, wouldn't they not mind spreading, uh, rumors?" she asks. "Or do you mean we'd just let on to specific people?" She quiets for a second. The ominousness of something he'd said is sticking with her. "And. How bad of a mistake would it be for them, if they did talk?"

"Then you're just another round-eyes going on safari. Nothing big there, no reason to talk. Though you might wanna hide that you're blind. Bit distinctive." When you ask your next question, he scoffs. "You're the heir to your father, Richie. He's friends with the mayor, lots of influence city-wide. He could make life pretty miserable for any lowlife trying to pull one over on you."

"You don't say," she replies, flicking the cane between her legs with a fingertip. "Anyway, I think I could manage that. And, that's true." She sighs slightly. Part of her had been wondering if he might give... more of an answer than that, but she supposes that does make sense as he'd laid it out. "It wouldn't be a good idea to make him mad."

She's quiet for a second as she ruminates on that. "Maybe we can save a trip down there for... another time. We're already on our way to the Met, right?" _Though it's not like I could know if you changed direction and started driving somewhere else. I'm not Sherlock Holmes._

"Sure thing. Great thing about being you, huh? You got everywhere to go, all the time to go there. Mind if I ask you something?"

"You just did," Rich replies lightly, though she frowns briefly at the implications of what he's saying, and can't help worrying a bit what he might want to ask. "...But, sure. Go ahead," she says nonetheless. _No point in being stubborn for no reason._

You can hear air blow from his nose as you jest, amused. But then the last bits of _Tchaikovsky_ come to an end, and the space within the car becomes still, even as the wheels spin and the road vibrates the frame all around you. Dex exists as a space of presence within that stillness, and he clicks his teeth in his jaw before the car slows to a halt. You've reached a red light, the sounds of traffic are still ambient. "You seemed a little bothered when you got into the car. Something happen?”

"Oh." Her frown deepens as he asks that, reminding her of the unpleasant altercation earlier. "Just... something one of the new hires said, when walking me outside. Talking about 'babysitting the blind one'." She sighs, grimacing briefly. "Guess it takes a while to get used to me, huh?"

"I dunno," your bodyguard replies casually. "I took to you right away."

The car rolls into motion again, and in no time at all you find yourselves at the Met. Even from the car, the sounds of music and feet crunching on the salted pavement are like a trail of breadcrumbs to your senses. When Dex steps out to open the door for you, you find you can get out on your own and orient in the general direction of the building, snowflakes falling into your hair. Dex had already called ahead to the Met before your arrival, so of course security allows you both in without a fuss despite the lack of VIP identification. The two of you take seats in the front row, amid various paintings and sculptures of surely priceless value that nonetheless mean little to your clouded eyes, as the quartet begins a new piece just for your arrival.

Rich blinks in surprise at that unexpected reply, and she finds herself smiling, cheered by his words. "Well. Good to know _your_ babysitting me isn't a burden," she replies, and will fall silent for the rest of the ride. Once the car stops, she hoists her cane and carefully steps out onto the pavement, the crunch of salt a relief to hear after her near-miss with an icy patch earlier. She finds herself blinking snowflakes out of her eyes as they walk in, but doesn't mind, finding it a pleasant sensation compared to others she has to deal with daily.

"Ahh," she sighs contentedly as the quartet begins playing, closing her eyes and tuning out everything but the music, a smile playing about her lips. _This is nice_, she finds, she's always found. Being able to lose herself in the sounds, forget about everything else for at least a short time, feeling the swells of the instruments rising and falling in pitch and volume. It's a bit of a disappointment being pulled back to reality once the first piece ends, but she claps her hands with clear enthusiasm as they finish, settled in for the rest of the performance.

As the next performance begins, you find yourself focusing more deeply on the music than you can ever recall doing before. It's an...ecstatic experience, even _sensual,_ to you who experiences so much with your four senses that you find it hard to imagine others cannot feel the rhythms of the violins as they arc through the air like currents of electricity and strike at your nerves. The energy of the performers as their bodies grow warmer from movement. The smell of olive oil on the strings. It's strange...you can almost...your eyes are stinging. You're not _crying,_ are you?

No. There are no tears. Something is happening to the gray you see. It's fluid, somehow.

Focusing on the music like this is nothing new to her, and she easily settles into the rhythm and melody of the next performance. But the feelings conveyed to her through her senses, the... strange feeling stinging in her eyes, make her feel as if the music is carrying her away, even as she dimly notices the unnerving strangeness of the gray she sees shifting in her field of view.

She feels reminded of a trip her and her parents took out to sea, a year or two ago, recalling the sensations of the boat rising and falling beneath her feet with the crests of waves. As the music builds to be more frantic and ominous, though, the memories start to shift away from reality, and she feels as though she's sailing into a storm, feeling electricity crackling in the air, hair raising on the skin of her arms... The sensation fades as the music returns to a softer, gentler pitch, but might well return when the part is reprised shortly thereafter.

In the gray..._divisions_ begin to appear. You don't know how you could explain it to someone else, but if you _tried..._

You think of the clouds of the storm. The darkness and watery depths within, simultaneously unsolid but present. If there were a description for your sight, that would be close. But for your life...that storm had been absent of rain. Electricity. _Thunder._ Your heart suddenly _tingles_ with an energy like nothing you've felt before, and with every beat carries that energy through your blood, up and across your nerves, digging into your bones, and you can...see... Lightning. Dust motes of what you can only assume must be _color,_ dancing in shapes across your vision, sparking and spitting in currents between one another and trailing light that illuminates shapes of solid gray, but with _edges_ of shadow that define them.

You can see the silhouette of the row ahead of you. The vibrations rippling from the quartet. You see the sparks bouncing off the inner walls of what must be the _audience,_ dozens of them, all with their own fireflies of light spinning around their hearts. Do they know they look like this? Do they know...

"Hey, kid?" Dex asks you with some concern, reaching out to touch your shoulder _you can see him reaching for you through the storm cloud-_ "What's wrong? Are you-"

Your vision _bursts_ and you are falling again.

Falling.

Falling.

Fallen.

***********

You wake up two days later, in a private ward reserved for VIPs administered by your family's personal doctor, in hospital. Your vision is back to what it was. You see only gray, sense only what your human senses can perceive naturally. But you know...something in you has changed. You _saw,_ in a manner of speaking, if only for a moment.

Your mother had wrapped you in a shivering embrace when you woke. Your father, with a hoarseness to his words as though he had screamed for every hour you'd been dead to the world, told you how happy he was to have you back. Outside, you could hear the rhythmic tapping of shoes as Dex guarded the door to your room. He smelled like sweat and raw meat. The music. The emotions. The peace between the two. It let you _see._

Should you...tell them?

Awake. Her first waking thought is some surprise that she woke up at all. What happened at the performance, and the last conscious thoughts she'd had, her vision bursting before she fell into darkness, looking back seem morbidly like a permanent ending to her life. She's scared, scared of what she saw and what had happened- was that even real? Could _that_ have been a dream? But this is real now, she can tell by the feelings of her mother's touch, her father's voice, her driver's scent... and her eyes are back to normal. Maybe what she had seen had never really happened. Maybe it wouldn't happen again.

But... If it _did_ come back... "I..." She swallows, shuddering at the fears and feelings coursing through her. "I- I saw something. Before I... collapsed, I guess. I don't really know how to explain it, but..." Voice shaky, she does her best to recount what she had seen, and felt, the lightning in the stormy darkness. The energy in the people all around.

Your mother and father listen in rapt attention as you describe your...vision. Dream. Sight. With every detail, they seem to grow more intent and more...thoughtful, in the tells you pick up. Your ears pick up your mother reaching to run a hand down her hair, pinching strands between her fingers. Your father is looking down and to the left, judging by the rustle of his suit-jacket.

And your father's ring finger is twitching. You can hear it tap against the fabric of his pant leg. "We always knew that you were..._special._ Son." Your father rumbles lowly, speaking half to himself. "There are people of certain..._talent,_ in this world. Born with skills that few possess. What you say you've seen...I believe it."

"When this...energy went through you," your mother begins contemplatively. "You said it rose from your heart and into your eyes. Like a current. That the music made you feel at peace?"

"You always- _what_?" Rich says in disbelief, sightless eyes widening at her father's words, visibly taken aback. "You _knew_ that I was- w-what, that something like this might happen to me? I don't..." Her voice gets choked, and she swallows. "I don't _feel_ special. O-or talented. I don't even know what's happening." "I..." She pauses at her mother's words, trying to collect herself again. "I guess it made me feel at peace, but _that_ part didn't seem... unusual? I don't see how it would be related to the energy..."

She takes a deep breath, shaking her head. "Do you know? Do you know what this is about, what's happening to me? Either of you?" she says helplessly. "Because it really seems like _you_ might, but _I_ have no idea. And I know it's not what's expected of me, Mom, but I'm _kind of freaking out about this_."

"Not _this,_ no. This I could not have anticipated." Your father replies.

"Ssshh. You will be okay, You're safe." Your mother holds your face in her hands and presses her forehead against yours, as she did to calm you when you were small. When she pulls away, she begins to explain. "When I was apart from your father, before you were born, I travelled to many places. Greece. Spain. India. It was necessity, but also for pleasure. I wanted to learn more about the world and everything in it. I'd heard tell of monks who could harness spiritual power for healing. Warriors who used _chi_ to strike as hard as an ape, or turn their skin as strong as diamond. It was nonsense, of course. Or so I believed at the time. But after the world grew wiser to things beyond our understanding, your father and I sought...alternative wisdoms. What you've said sounds like you tapped into a strength within yourself, and it gave you sight."

Feeling Vanessa pressing their foreheads together to try and comfort her makes Rich feel very like a child, for a moment. What makes her feel even more childish is that it actually works, and she feels herself calming down, at least a little, leaning into the contact with a silent sigh. Another time she might have pulled away in protest, but right now, she needs this. She listens silently to her mother's explanation of her experiences, nodding slowly at what she says, frowning at the mention of the feats these people could supposedly perform. "I'm pretty sure I can't do anything like that. The... punching like an ape, or diamond skin, or anything."

She rubs her forehead, grimacing. "Tapping into strength... I guess that _sounds_ good, but I don't feel like it was _me_ tapping into anything. Just like it was something happening _to_ me. I wasn't- I didn't feel in control, of what was happening."

"Control comes from understanding. And understanding..." your father exhales softly. You hear a seat creak as he falls into it, and the rustling of limbs. "Will help you fight this - fear. I will find someone for you. The best of the art, be it..._chi_ or chakra or whatever much be learned for you to harness this talent. And make it your own. For you."

For a moment, Rich is not sure she's heard him right. "You will?" The words slip out before she's realized, almost awestruck as she registers what he's offering. "You- you'd really do that, for me, Father?" She feels choked up, overwhelmed. He'd never been overly close to her, he'd always seemed uncomfortable, at home. She hadn't expected this.

She hadn't known he cared. "T-thank you, _thank_ you. I'll-" She swallows, takes a deep breath, sits up straighter. "I'll do as much as I can to learn from them. To understand. I _will_, I promise."

He's hugging you before you can finish your sentence.

"Everything that I do...I do for you," your father breathes. "Everything."

Your mother says nothing. She doesn't need to. You can feel her smile from the lips on your cheek and the salt of her tears trickling down to graze your mouth.

She feels the words catch in her throat as he hugs her tight, his heavy arms wrapped tight around her, and a small sob escapes her mouth before she can catch it. "Thank you," she whispers again, closing her eyes, feeling both of her parents' presence close and comforting, and hugs him and her mother with an arm apiece. Despite what's happened, despite their difficulties, here and now with them, she feels safe. Blessedly safe.

"I love you," she says quietly, and feels like a longstanding pressure releases from her chest as she says it. "...Thanks for being here for me."

"Thank you, my baby," your mother replies. "For _being.”_

***********

A day later, you are released from the hospital with advisement to maintain rest and good nutrition - further follow up testing has been scheduled by your father, who wishes to determine the effects the summoning of the strange power within you has on your biology. In his words, the understanding of the interplay between known sciences and the realm of the soul has remained frustratingly vague even in the more learned times of the day - discovering _how_ your body reacts to and produces _chi_, chakra, or whatever you possess could be revolutionary for the family business and the larger world.

Your mother's concerns were more personal - she wanted to be entirely certain that what happened to you was not an accident of your brain, or body. Sometimes, your keen ears catch a whisper through a door of your mother tensely discussing something with your father. Something about your birth. _Zeus_ always informs them before you can truly eavesdrop, though, and you are ushered away or greeted with strained pleasantries and shifted topics.

Tests from the family physicians and private technicians reveal nothing when you are made to attempt to summon the bizarre sight you'd possessed in that moment in the museum. Returning to that place and having the same music played seemed to provoke no response, either. Verified monks and tutors come and go, but few impart any reasonable suggestions that you can actually grasp - much of the study of manifesting _chi_ is theoretical even to the high masters, and true practitioners are like unicorns. Which could exist for all anyone knows, in this world of monsters and aliens and spiritual energies

In your dreams...you dream of _black skies smeared with the color of wrath. The sky molts and crunches into the shape of a woman, death wrapped in ropes of rage and blood, trailing feathery raven hair that glistens and crackles with sharp jagged lightning. She takes your hands and you dance, twirling and laughing and biting and bleeding, your own personal danse macabre._

Two weeks later, your latest instructor has arrived. You are being walked to your father's business room, where he meets with politicians, local figures of influence, and partners of industry to discuss plans for shaping the future. Now it is _your_ future that is being shaped. Your cane clacks against the polished floors, the scent of honey in the hair and growing stronger the closer you get closer to your destination. Dex walks briskly beside you, having been quiet and tightly wound since your visit to the hospital. Once, you were startled by a monk reaching out to feel your chakra points, and Dex had picked up a nearby potted plant and flung it with such force that the man had been immediately knocked unconscious and taken to the hospital.

You hadn't seen him again.

"So, what do you think?" Rich asks Dex quietly, titling her head slightly to the side towards him as they proceed down the hallway. "Expecting this one to be any better than the others?" Her tone is dry and doubtful, for her own part, though she avoids outright voicing them too fervently in case Zeus or her father might hear.

"..." She's silent for a moment after asking that, feeling a distance between them, unsure of the exact source of his tension but having a feeling that it's somehow her fault. "...So, hey. I realized that I didn't-" She pauses. "I never really... apologized for what happened back then. It seemed like things might have been, uh, difficult, afterward," she says hesitantly, remembering the whiff of a scent like raw meat she'd picked up from him in the hospital, when she woke up.

Dex's stride doesn't falter, nor does his breathing change when he replies: "It was hard. Really hard."

"...Right," Rich says after a second, biting her lip. "Well, uh. Sorry for that. I didn't mean to-" _Make you worry?_ "To cause you any trouble," she goes with instead, on some intuition.

"It's fine. Shit happens, right?" Your bodyguard asks rhetorically, clothes rustling as he shrugs his shoulders. "Was kind of...weird, I guess. Had to explain to your father that nothing happened. You just started convulsing. Then next thing I knew, you're in the hospital, and I was..." he pauses. "In the doghouse for a bit. No big deal."

"I guess so, yeah," Rich murmurs. The worst kind of shit happening is the kind where she can't find an explanation why, and the recent events fell squarely into that category. "That can't have been a very fun thing to explain," she says after a moment's pause. She grimaces faintly at his last words, but he _did_ say it was no big deal, right? He was probably telling the truth. "Well, I'm glad it wasn't a big deal, in that case." She quiets, stopping as her cane hits the wall at the end of the hall. She stays still for a second, and reaches out to feel for the business room's door, knocking twice in quick, short motions.

"That would be him," your father says through the door. You feel and hear his heavy steps, and the polish of his shoes against the floors, and then the door is opened and you are escorted inside. Dex makes a _clacking_ sound with his tongue, and the noise reaches just far enough for you to understand you are in a...makeshift _dojo,_ of a sort. Just a few steps ahead of you begins a training mat, thick but soft with pockets of air running through it. A ceiling fan spins overhead, pushing the scent of honey up and down and outward. Racks of various objects - weapons? - on the walls.

here's weight on the matt, where the smell of honey is strongest. You hear the woman's hair rustle as her ponytail slides between her shoulder-blades and she turns to face you. She makes an amused "hmph," in her throat. "Your son is very attentive, Mister Fisk. You could smell the perfume?" She directs her last words at you. She smells like honey, indeed. And under it...blood. Darkness. Exotic foods and spices.

Rich jolts slightly at that question, eyebrows shooting up. "...Uh, yes," she says in response, swallowing. "How did you... notice that I could?" She pauses, brows contracting as she takes in the scents underneath the perfume. "It's, er, a nice smell, ma'am. Pleased to meet you. Richard Fisk," she says, sense of propriety returning after that initial shock, even if her mother isn't there.

"I have my ways," the woman replies dismissively, though she perks up at your introduction. "It _is_ a nice one, isn't it? Compliments all the other smells, wouldn't you agree?" You note that she ignores your question.

"I would say so, yes," Rich says slowly, feeling off-balanced by this line of questioning. This woman... she was different from the others. "I'm not, uh, exactly an expert at blending them for myself, but I think the combination works well on you." This isn't the kind of small talk she's exactly used to. Most people never talk about smells at all, or most of the other things she can sense, except to complain about something especially blatant and unpleasant. "...I hope I didn't keep you waiting, Father?" she says, head turning slightly towards where she can sense his presence. "You and our guest," she adds, looking back to the still unintroduced woman.

"No," your father is quick to reply, with an edge to the word like he's refraining from gritting his teeth. "Richard, this woman is to be your new instructor. Her name is - "

"Elektra Natchios," the woman interrupts. Dex tenses, as does the five other men under your father's employ stationed with stances that would suggest readiness to act at any moment. All of them smell like they are armed, and two have their hands on their handguns beneath their suits. _Nobody_ interrupts Wilson Fisk when he is talking.

Elektra, however, seems to have missed the memo. She turns to your father, and you hear the clinking of gold ringlets on her wrist. "I'll take it from here. You'll receive progress reports as training proceeds, and I'll continue receiving my payments and access to your _wonderful_ open bar. Really is the best in the city, isn't it?"

"...Yes," your father replies coolly, with supreme restraint. "Richard. Apply yourself as diligently as always. We have great faith in you. Dex, if you would."

"Maybe one of us should stick around." Dex replies uncertainly. "Just in case anybody gets _ideas."_

Elektra laughs lightly. "Oh, dear boy. I'm already getting _ideas."_

_Okay, so he's not the only one who's not used to dealing with her,_ Rich notes to herself at her father's initial reply, before tensing up in unison with all the others as she interrupts him, gritting her teeth. The woman- Elektra- seemed like she'd be perceptive enough to how bad an idea that would be, but maybe not...? "I will, Father," she says at his address, exhaling softly as nothing bad _immediately_ comes of her interrupting. "I... wouldn't mind if Dex stayed," she says uncertainly, focus shifting between the others. "But I don't know if it's really up to me. I don't... think she's interested in hurting me, though."

"Smell that, too, do you?" Elektra asks curiously. "Or maybe you've just got good sense. But I'm being paid to give lessons to you, not the cute little puppy over there. One-on-one, or I walk."

Dex is starting to smell _warmer,_ and his hand is trailing up to his waistband-

"Of course. We will _honor_ your terms," your father directs his words half at this new woman, half at your incensed shadow who stiffens as his leash is tugged. All other parties slowly filter out, until the doors have closed and you are alone at last. Elektra abruptly slides to the mat and crosses her legs, exhaling loudly.

"Mmm, much better. Have a seat, won't you? Might as well get started quickly if we're going to have you halfway decent sometime in the next three years."

Rich just shrugs slightly at her curious question. "I have my ways," she echoes with a hesitant smile. _Probably just a lucky guess, though, really._ "One-on-one it..." She trails off, sensing Dex starting to get displeased, but is relieved to find the brewing problem solved for her by her father, and relaxes.

She stays silent until they all leave, and takes a step over to the mat, not sitting down just yet and just observing Elektra curiously. And more than a little bemusedly. "Is the situation that desperate?" she asks with a joking tone and smile. "Also-" she blinks. "Three _years_? Has that been decided?" She does sit down at that, though it's cautiously, not knowing what to make of Elektra.

"Well, if we want you to be any good at what you're trying to do?" Elektra tilts her head. "Yes. What, did you think we'd have you throwing fireballs and peeking through women's blouses before Christmas? Good things take time."

She reaches out and snatches your cane from your hands. "First thing, you'll be getting rid of this little crutch. Can't teach you to run if you need training wheels to walk."

Demonstratively, she snaps it in half and tosses the two halves in either direction.

Rich colors at the first insinuation. "Wh- I wasn't assuming _anything_ like that-" she sputters, before starting as Elektra snatches her cane away. "Hey!" She protests with a jolt, eyes going wide. "I need that- what the _hell_!" her voice raises in a louder protest as she hears Elektra snap the cane in half. "What are you _doing_?! You could have just put it away or given it to Dex or something, why..."

You notice the edges of your gray are starting to color.

"I'm sure daddy's money can buy you a million new walking sticks," your instructor snorts. "But he can't buy you skill. Or the drive to get them. Or new eyes to see with, so maybe you can peek in the mirror someday and look at the cute little kid dressed in a suit that definitely doesn't fit the way you'd like it to."

"Is it hard, living in a sighted man's world? Tugged around on your leash like a prized poodle, sniffing and tilting your head to sense things everyone else can notice by squinting a little?"

Rich goes very still as she says that last about the suit, feeling a cold chill in her stomach. "What-" She stops, starts again. "What exactly do you think you know about me...?" She falls silent at the further questions, blind eyes narrowing. "I think you know the answer to that question," she says, voice a bit harder now. "But I can deal with it. It's not easy, but I've learned how to get around in the world. Well enough, at least." She lets out a huff of a breath, grimacing. _Even if it's nothing like the sound of what you're promising me._

"I know a little more now than I did before," Elektra replies vaguely. She makes a satisfied noise at your additional replies, hands on her knees. "Well enough, hm? Good on you. Nice and stiff upper lip. Do you _feel_ like you're well enough?"

"Mm." Rich doesn't like the sound of that first answer, but lets it slide. "My parents have high expectations for me," she can't help saying to elaborate on the 'well enough', before swallowing at the last question, feeling a lump in her throat. "I..." Her voice catches. _No. Of course not._ "I can... _manage_ being blind, but-" She trails off. "You're not going to tell them what I say, are you?"

She laughs. It's melodic, sweet, and very much ill-fitting. "I'm several hundred more times expensive than a therapist and half as qualified. But sure, I won't tell them anything. I did make sure that this little safe room wasn't bugged with that V.I. you've got shadowing your every move. Used to be, parents would hire nannies to helicopter for them. Now they have it automated."

Rich's eyebrows shoot up as she says that about the V.I. "I _was_ wondering about Zeus," Rich mutters, on-guard briefly before relaxing as what she says sinks in. "...Well. I don't have any idea how you managed that, but I do appreciate the privacy." She shakes her head slowly. "To answer your question. No, I don't feel like I'm well enough. But I haven't exactly had a better option than to deal."

"Good. The first step to learning anything is to recognize that you don't _know_ anything. You want to be well enough for yourself? Or...for your parents, maybe?" Elektra stands up. "Then get up. We've got a lot of work ahead of us, and I'm hungry so we'll be getting some pie."

"Bit of both," she murmurs in response to that, before blinking in surprise at the sudden movement. "O...kay?" Rich says, now wrong-footed again but uncertainly pushing herself to her feet. _You're going to take some getting used to, aren't you, lady._ "Well, no one else my dad brought in to look at me offered me pie, so I can work with this," she says, though some anxiety returns as she realizes she'll need to walk without her cane. Her hand grasps uselessly at thin air for a second, and she stays still.

Elektra moves past you briskly, already having fingers wrapped around the door handle. "Coming? I'm not holding your hand, Richard. You've had plenty of that your whole life, I'm sure. It's time to stand on your own two feet. Now _start walking."_

Rich swallows hard, feeling a lump in her throat, and part of her instinctively recoils at that order. But she takes a deep breath, nodding to try and reassure herself that she can do this. _I know the house by heart, at least. That... that won't be the hard part, probably. After that- let's just try not to think about after that._ "All right," she says quietly, and steps forward after Elektra, focusing on all the senses that she can.

You manage to find your way through the tower and down to the bottom floor, with reasonably minimal stumbles and trips - through you bang up your knee on one particularly hard fall, it'll surely bruise - thankfully given a small unspoken mercy by Elektra who deigns to take the elevator down the thirteen floors to the ground. Outside is the hard part. You're dressed for impression, but not the outdoors, and the above-freezing but still cold air cuts through your silken over-garments and the ground is slippery and you're walking totally blind.

[Somewhere ahead of you, Elektra whistles.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWir6wUkPtw) "Come along, then. No driving express - we're doing it nomadic. Those scrawny legs of yours need some stretching."

“We’re _walking_ there? Seriously?” Rich protests, eyes wide. She can’t remember the last time she was forced to walk anywhere beyond the bounds of a building. “If I fall and break my neck, I’m blaming you for it,” Rich mutters tensely, before taking hesitant steps that are likely to widen the gap between them quickly. “Look, hey, do you at least have any advice for how I can- try to do this? There’s a lot of ice, you know...!”

She shivers hard, feeling the wind cutting through her clothes, and feels distinctly tempted to call Dex to pick her up as rescue from this woman.

“How do you normally get around? You use your senses. Trust what they tell you,” Elektra replies neutrally, you can hear her boots crunching snow as she turns and...her gait changes. She’s walking backwards, into the way of pedestrians you smell coming through the wind blowing in your face. “How am I getting around? I can’t see what’s coming, and yet...”

And yet, she steps to the left, the right, moving through the oncoming, apathetic crowd of New Yorkers hurrying to get out of the storm. “They’re missing me. Or rather, I’m not letting them touch me. I’m listening, feeling, and letting it just...guide me. You’d have learned this years ago if they never put that damn thing in your hands and said that was the end of it.”

“I... I guess so, but there’s still-!” There’s nothing to support her here, no one around to catch her if she falls, and she feels herself staring to edge towards panic before the change in Elektra’s gait fully captures her attention. Her ears pick up the minute changes in her changing direction, the lack of sound of any collisions, and her mouth falls open slightly in awe and disbelief. “But I _haven’t_ learned it yet...” she points out under her breath, taking an unsteady breath and trying to focus. Trying to make out more from her senses, listening for the steps of people’s movement, taking in the different scents to distinguish one person from another, mentally placing them ahead, to the side, at one angle and another and another...

Everyone walks differently - you know this, having heard discussions with your father and an OsCorp security representative as he explains the benefits of funding gait-recognition software in cameras throughout the city. Through them, you could track criminals and their movements purely by how they walked, ran, jogged... You can recognize the distinct steps of the people coming toward you. Their different shoes. The sounds they make when they hit the ground. The alternating paces. Elektra's honey-scented perfume trails through ahead like a line through a maze. The way the wind stops and moves around the bodies of the pedestrians. You move, and....

Elektra applauds as you arrive at her position. "Good work. I like a quick learner."

Rich moves with a grace she didn’t know to expect through the crowd of pedestrians, closing her eyes in some instinctive bid to better concentrate on scent and smell. She weaves through the crowds, following Elektra’s perfume some but needing to swiftly reorient once or twice as she realizes the path between two people has been closed off by their movements among themselves. But, eventually...

She makes it, shocked to find Elektra close by, an unmistakable sign of her success. She opens her mouth to reply but all that comes out is a sigh of relief, her body perhaps having been tenser than her senses had fooled her into feeling. “Do you always teach people in a way that’s this sink-or-swim?” she asks, a small proud smile playing around her lips before she shivers at another gust of wind, teeth chattering. “F-f-forget it. Let’s keep going to the p-pie place...”

"It's how I was taught," Elektra replies, almost indignant in a haughtily roundabout sort of way. "I like to think I turned out okay. Now, second lesson. Your body is a remarkable machine. And inside you, there's fuel powering that machine. Energy. That energy is normally automatic, much of it wasted and ambient. You tapped into some of that energy before and it made you stronger. I have a theory about that, but in the meantime, we need to give you the right mindset for directing that energy. Starting with _control._"

You walk side-by-side along with her, the smell of pizza hanging in the air. You're somewhere near your destination, maybe. "Focus on yourself. Blot out everything that doesn't matter. The cold, too. Think about _heat,_ and what it means to you. You're not cold. You were never cold. Cold is imaginary. All you are is _warm."_

“That’s...” _There’s no way that will work,_ is Rich’s immediate reaction, but she holds her tongue and thinks back, recontextualizing this. Sure, it might sound impossible, but was it any less impossible than the kinds of supernatural feats her parents had said were actually real? And what Elektra had- probably jokingly, but still- mentioned as possibilities for Rich herself, in the future?

“Alright...” she says hesitantly, taking a breath and trying to imagine heat, picture a stove, a summer day.

She finds it exceedingly difficult to reconcile that with the reality of the harsh winter blowing around her, and tries to think of hotter things- the sun, volcanoes, that one time she burned herself picking up an iron their housekeeper had been using (who she had never seen again, after that, come to think of it), but...

But it’s no use. The reality she’s in is cold, frigid, uncomfortable, and _unusual_ when compared to their lavish and well-heated home. Her body’s senses are practically screaming her at that in protest and she can’t block them out, especially not with the imagined hot things she lacks any real context for. She continues shivering, but tries to still her movements, pulling her teeth _slightly_ apart to keep them from actively hitting each other when they chatter, but unable to keep them from chattering in the first place. She hopes against hope that might be enough for Elektra not to notice.

Your hopes...are dashed right away. Elektra sighs. "Mm. Oh, well. Guess you're not _quite_ as fast as we'd like, but you're still half-decent. Come on, let's get you warm before my nice, adorable source of income freezes solid and I have to deal with your father's tantrum."

You walk into a pizza parlor, and immediately you're smacked with the smells of grease. Greasy food. Greasy people. Unwashed faces, beards with food stuck in them. Dirt and cheap cleaner and smoke. Cigarettes that stink of _rot_ and _tar._

"Got a headache yet?" Elektra asks as you both sit across from one another in a booth. She flags down an attendee and places her order. "One extra-large, please, lots of pepperoni, olives, aaaaaand...." you hear her head turn towards you. "Anchovies. Get it to us perfectly made and I'll give you a grand as a tip. Agreed?"

"Yes, ma'am," a woman's voice replies, as she hustles off.

Rich winces as Elektra immediately catches on to her... lack of success. "T-thank you," she says fervently through chattering teeth, something about the way Elektra'd phrased that feeling off to her, but right now she's feeling too cold to care. _-Wait, did she just call me adorable?_ The relief of warmth as she follows Elektra into a building is immediately compromised by a mélange of scents, too many too unpleasant for her taste, and her nose wrinkles in distaste.

_Still, it's better than the cold,_ she tells herself, wincing a bit and feeling a throbbing in her temple as they sit down. "...Yes, actually. How did you know?" she asks curiously, eyebrows raising, and waits for her to order before blinking at the last detail. "I, uh, don't think I've ever had anchovies," she says honestly. "Are those something that you think I'd like...?"

There is a _silence._ "...yes, I'm sure you'll love them." She replies in a way that suggests you will probably _not_ love them - though she may love watching you not love them. "As for how I knew, take a guess. You've never been out of mommy and daddy's shadow, have you? Their precious little bird, stuck in his cage. I bet you've been taken to only the finest restaurants and brought the chef's most expensive thousand-dollar dishes to nibble between sips of baby's first wine. Living like someone normal is the opposite of normal to you. Am I getting all that right?"

Rich twitches at her words, mouth tightening slightly on the word 'his', though the rest of her candid mockery stings much more than something that she's used to. "I'm not _that_-" she starts to protest, but the words stick in her throat and she grimaces, swallowing them. "I- I get out. I've been to plenty of places away from them, with Dex, places that weren't anywhere near that expensive... normal places, like museums, or orchestras, or cruises..." She sighs through gritted teeth, still not exactly acclimated to the scents in the restaurant. "Not places as _smelly_ as this one, either, but... is it supposed to be _my_ fault that my parents are rich?"

"Is there something wrong with being used to places better than this one?" she can't help adding, perhaps unwisely.

"Places better? Implying this place is _lesser?"_ You can imagine the eyebrow raise. "You've got the rich kid attitude down, I'll give you that. I guess by that definition, you were something of a disappointment, weren't you?"

The waitress sets down your steaming pizza. The smell curls around you like a blanket, mixing strangely with all the other smells of the diner, with Elektra's honey-scent.

She quickly pries a piece apart from the whole with her hands, and chews appreciatively while she waits for your answer.

“Well, I mean-” _Yeah,_ she stops herself from being blunt enough to say, even with her discomfort. "I don't mean this place is _bad_, it's just... you know, greasy," she mutters, shifting in her seat. _And dirty, and smoky, and it smells like cigarettes..._ she keeps to herself, before stiffening at that last from Elektra.

"_What_?" she asks in a tight voice, eyes narrowing and with color now starting to heat up the gray mass of her vision. Before she can say more, she practically gags as a particularly _pungent_ odor wafts over her nostrils of something coming nearer, and finds the source of it being carried over and placed down right in front of her. _Nope. Nope. Not doing that,_ she thinks, covering her nose and mouth with a hand, trying to block out the smell as much as she can but only able to partly manage. "What do you mean a disappointment?" she asks after a second, voice colder now, angrier. "Like being 'less' than they were expecting? Is that it?"

"I don't recall mentioning a 'they,'" Elektra replies through a mouthful of evil, repulsive pizza. "You seeing anything yet?"

"You-!" Rich starts to object, replaying her words over in her head, realizing that was true, and feeling more incensed at what she now feels tricked into revealing, more of her vision now starting to take on a distinctly crimson hue. "You know what I meant- I mean, _I_ knew what _you_ meant-!" She cuts off at that unexpected question, taking a deep breath through gritted teeth and letting it out. "Red," she answers shortly.

"Mmm! Appropriate, isn't it? I appreciate the color, myself," your teacher swallows the last chunk of her first slice, licking her lips. "Look, whatever you've got between you and your parents is your business. _My_ business is to teach you how to take your power and make it yours. Which means _honesty._ With me, and with yourself." She tears another slice of pizza, and offers it to you. "Sometimes honesty doesn't smell pretty or taste perfect. But if you want to be strong one day, you need to _eat up."_

"...I've been raised to be polite. Not to be honest," Rich says, more quietly now, feeling another lump in her throat. _Saying too much gets in the way of that. At least it seems that way with Mom. And I don't even want to think about telling them some things 'honestly'._ The colors she sees are shifting, the red cooling off to more of a purplish hue. "But you don't exactly seem to care about politeness, so... I can try, I guess," she mutters, grimacing at the offered slice of pizza. She'd almost been managing to ignore the scent, but that just brings it back to be more overwhelming. After a silent second, she lifts up a hand to take the slice of pizza. But she makes a point of holding her nose with her other hand as she takes a bite of it.

It's actually not bad, she finds, to her surprise. Especially compared to what she'd been expecting. It's almost... earthy, feeling unrefined on her taste buds, and the mix of salty flavors as she chews the mouthful aren't what she's expecting, but they're pretty good. She swallows and takes another bite, cautiously unplugging her nose. ...Which makes the scent and flavors of her second bite less muted in a way she's not prepared for. She still finishes it, but is visibly enjoying it much less this time as she swallows. Still, she keeps eating until she's finished the slice.

"Ever listened to that old movie, with the little muppet man? Do or do not. There is no try." Elektra moves on to her second slice. "Now, tell me about the incident. When you started to see, what were you thinking about? What were you _feeling?"_

Rich notes, with some grudging respect, the fact that Elektra says 'listened' instead of 'watched'. "I think I've heard that... somewhere or other, at least," she says with a nod. _Well, I ate the pizza. I didn't just try and fail to force it down. That counts for something, right?_ She pauses guiltily for a second, trying to think of ways to distract Elektra from seeing, then reaches out to take a second slice and nibbles on it as she ponders that, thinking back. "I was at a string quartet performance," she murmurs, trying to recall just what she was thinking and feeling. "I was... just enjoying the music, at first. Sinking into it. Feeling- peaceful, for once, at the start. Glad to be away from it all."

She shakes her head slightly, slowly. "I think my mind started wandering, after that, in the second piece. I started remembering... it's kind of weird to say, but- thinking of a storm. On a boating trip my parents and I went on, one time. A thunderstorm- thunder... lightning." She gives her head another shake, trying not to sink back into that memory, afraid of what might happen again if she does. "I _saw_ lightning," she stresses, leaning forward, blind eyes wide. "I've never seen that before, anything like that. I just know what it's _supposed_ to look like- at least I think I do- my mom told me once about how it lights up the sky... "

Elektra exhales slowly, and her posture adjusts. You've attracted her..._curiosity._ "Interesting. Almost like a vision. This sight of yours might have layers to it. But for now, you're smart enough that I'm sure you've realized that two things seem to trigger your abilities. Internal focus, and...an emotion to guide it. Anger seems to bring it out, when you're not too busy being _polite_ to acknowledge it. But it looks like that might just be a symptom of something else. Something...deeper. What was it like? Seeing lightning for the first time?"

"Layers," Rich repeats, frowning as she processes that. Well, it had seemed different than the other times she'd seen things, since then, looking back. "I- right. I was feeling the opposite then, but I was still... feeling things strongly. Then, and the times since then, too." she acknowledges with a small nod, eyes unfocusing at the question. "It was..."

She thinks back, recalling how she'd felt, in that moment the way she had felt energized- not just from the strange vision's effect on her, but simply from _seeing_ it, too. "Amazing," she says, letting out a quiet sigh. "I- I could see colors- for the first time. Not the lightning itself, that was just... bright, but all around- little motes of brightness, all around. They were in the people there, I think." "...It felt like a dream," she adds after a second, quietly. The world around her is a muted blue. "The- the good kind, that you have every now and then. Like I was doing something impossible- something I'm not allowed to, in the real world."

Elektra chuckles. "The spice of life is all about doing things you're not allowed to do. Like walking through the city in the dead of winter without a cane or a coat. Eating cheap pizza in a smelly diner that would make your personal chef faint. Talking about yourself in the most intimate and impolite of ways." "The funny thing about dreams, Richard, is that the only line between them and reality is the will to see them so firmly that everyone else starts to see too." Elektra leans back in her booth seat, grunting. "That dream about the cruise. Is that something you want to make real someday?"

"Funny that all the things you're mentioning seem to be done at my expense," Rich says a bit flatly, though there's no actual anger in her voice. "Are you sure this 'spice of life' isn't just for _your_ personal amusement?" She snorts softly, shaking her head. The pearl of wisdom Elektra drops after that, though, gives Rich pause for a moment, and she stills, processing. "I'm not really sure that part's true," she mutters softly, though there's a strange twisting in her chest as she says it, a rising hope struggling with chains of doubts. _But I hope it could be._ "I... don't have any real attachment to thunderstorms, so no, not really. The- you called it a vision? It just kind of happened to me. It's not some hope or dream of mine."

She quiets for a second again. "But- seeing like I did, during that- being able to see, in whatever sort of way I did. That part _is_ something I would want to make real. If it really could be possible," she finishes, with a note of questioning.

She pauses. "Hm. Think about that for a bit. Roll it around. In the meantime...I'll help you help yourself see. Maybe even have a little fun along the way. Now, let's finish this pie up, shall we? You'll be wishing you could sit on your ass and stuff your face as a lesson, soon enough..."

You walk back to the tower with Elektra - not the same way, no, as she very deliberately takes a roundabout and alternative route. She anticipates a question you may or may not’ve had, and responds: “Familiarity with the unfamiliar is an asset. You’re never to use that cane in my presence again. Consider that Rule Number Two, right behind Rule Number One: honesty.” Back in the tower, in the comfort of familiarity, Rule Number Two is easier to follow. You find yourself back in the dojo, and this time, Elektra does not sit. Instead, she snaps her fingers at you. “Shoes off. Lose the overshirt. And sit down.”

"So just out of curiosity, does that mean you're going to be honest with me, too?" Rich replies, wrapping her arms around her torso for whatever meager comfort from the cold it can provide. The answer to that turns out to be 'negligible', and she ends up bumping into someone this time, distracted by the cold. It doesn't turn into a life-threatening accident, at least, but she's still stinging from the collision as they get back home. "...Why do I need to take off my shirt?" she says blankly at that question, starting to get more accustomed to Elektra's way of doing things but still not prepared for the directions she swerves off in, that one in particular. She obeys the first and third directives, but keeps the overshirt until she gets an answer.

"It means I won't lie to you. But if you're expecting us to share stories about our first crushes and our deepest woes, well..." she pauses. "Well. _You'll_ be sharing, if I decide you have to. But I promise to only lie by omission." Your instructor turns to you, the scent of pizza still on her breath. Anchovies smelled _strongly._ "As for the shirt? Because I say so. And it'll get in the way."

"You know, you're a lot more annoying than all of the _normal_ teachers I've had," Rich mutters, dispensing with politeness in the privacy they allegedly have here. "But, alright. That's better than nothing." She wrinkles her nose pointedly at the scent of anchovies on Elektra's breath, eyes scrunching up. " 'Because I say so'? Great, now you sound like my mom," she mutters, before sighing pointedly and taking off the overshirt, though making a point of doing it more slowly than she has to. She still has an undershirt on, which is enough to keep the request merely weird instead of outright uncomfortable. "Get in the way of what?"

"This," Elektra answers cheerily, her open palm striking you dead-center in the chest and knocking you flat to the ground.

"_Gah-_!" Though a part of her picks up the rush of air just _slightly_ telegraphing the movement, Rich is _not_ in any way expecting that, and is knocked (metaphorically) flat on her face, thankfully at least landing on the matted floor instead of polished stone. "What the _hell_? What kind of teacher _are_ you?" she demands, pushing herself onto her knees and struggling up from the ground. "And why did you even tell me to sit down if you were going to do that?!"

"So you wouldn't hit your head too hard when you fell," Elektra replies. "In the last hour, you've walked without a cane, tried new things, and been more honest with someone else than you ever have been in your whole life. _That's_ the kind of teacher I am." She sits. "Now. I want you to sit back up, and collect yourself. You're going to learn how to meditate."

"One with an inflated ego, you mean?" Rich mutters, rubbing the back of her head. She can grudgingly acknowledge the point that Elektra's making, but like hell if she's going to admit it out loud. She's too sore, physically and otherwise, to want to do that. "And are you _sure_ that's not just an excuse so you can hit me again?" she adds, reluctantly folding her legs into a sitting position, and defiantly crossing her arms over her chest at the same time. "Because I'm not really in a mood to clear my mind, after that." _Drop my guard, more like._

"I could tell my father that you hit me, you know," she mutters after a moment, still disbelieving that she'd dared to do that.

"That's exactly the best kind of mood to be in. Any moron with a self-help book and some music can play at meditating when they're in ideal circumstances. Much more difficult to do it under _duress,_ where it _counts."_ She snorts at your remark. "Please, do. Maybe he'd give me a bonus for toughening you up a little."

"Everything's just part of the plan with you, huh?" Rich sighs heavily, grimacing with red flickering at the corners of her vision, as it had been since the surprise of the blow had worn off. "And- what-" She sputters at that response. "Why aren't you scared of him!?" bursts out of her mouth before she really even processes what she's asking. "You were just doing whatever you want, when he was talking, earlier!"

Elektra is quiet for a moment. "Because there's nothing he can take from me that I value. Not without consequences to him, personally. And he knows it."

You can hear a wry smile. "Think about it. I'm training you to access _chi._ To be powerful. Did you think that I can't practice what I preach? Your father knows better than to cross someone like me, over something as silly as you getting a boo-boo."

That's a much more honest-sounding reply than Rich expects, and she falls silent briefly, thinking over that with a pensive look on her face. _What kind of consequences could there be for him...?_ she wonders. _Does she mean because of me?_ She gives a small shake of her head as Elektra elaborates. "...What kinds of things can _you_ do, then?" she asks, actually rather curious about that now, though a small part of her is still wondering if Elektra's just an especially eccentric con woman. "Break rocks with a punch? Turn your skin into diamonds? Shoot fireballs from your hands?"

_"Pffffhahaha!"_ Elektra positively _barks_ a laugh. "That's a good one! Who told you that? I've got a bridge to sell them."

Rich is severely taken aback at Elektra outright laughing at her- even Dex never did that, the most she remembers seeing him let on was a chuckle, and usually in response to her joking on purpose rather than at her expense. "M-my mom did," she says defensively, an angry flush rising to her cheeks. "What can you _actually_ do, if that's so funny?"

Elektra stills. You can see..._smoke_ curling inside her. And lightning. _Bursting_ with red. The smoke sucks and curls, and suddenly you feel dizzy and nauseated the longer you "look." But your sight can't be pulled away. The lightning buzzes and hisses, and your hair stands on end with the sudden expression of _threat_ that comes calling from the deep, animal hindbrain still inside every human being. Inside Elektra, you see a black sky marked by bloody gashes. Then the smoke clears and the energy vanishes. Elektra's voice is steady. "I can get inside any building on the face of the earth. I can vanish into a crowd with ten eyes on me. I can clear a room of a dozen men armed with the most advanced weaponry and armor and never let their blood stain my clothes. I can track anyone in the world by touching their blood."

"I can do all that, and _so much more._ And if you open your mind and close your mouth a little more, maybe you'll be able to do half of that when I'm done with you. And then the only fear you'll need to worry about is the kind others experience when they think about crossing _you. _I'm not your mommy, kid. I'm the harshest taskmaster you're ever going to face. And if you can rise to the challenge, then you'll be more than _well enough._ You'll be _fearless."_

"Ghh-" Rich hisses at the things she's somehow seeing in Elektra, the dizziness and disorientation from looking too close, the primal feeling of sudden fear from the sense that she'd deeply screwed up. But then the world snaps back to normal, and for a second she's left reeling, half-wondering whether what she'd seen was even real. She listens silently to Elektra's quiet boasting about herself, very sobered by what she'd just seen, the insubordinate mood she was in now displaced with a prickling, wary discomfort. Could all the things she was saying actually be true? Rich keeps her mouth shut, and nods her head once to show she understands. Even if she still has doubts, at what Elektra's saying, despite the strength and resolve in her voice as she says it. The idea is far from her mental conception of herself, but she wants to believe it could be true.

"So what do I have to do, then?" she asks quietly, staring at Elektra. "...What do we do first?"

Elektra kneels down to your level, legs flat beneath her. Gone is the playful trickster. Vanished with the smoke of the thunderous Titaness and red lightning into the shifting colors of your sight. Her words are calm, level, and spoken with gentleness. "Turn those eyes of yours inside. Think about yourself. All your joys. Your hurts. Your secret wishes. Think about the storm. The cruise ship. Think about the red you saw when I hit those buttons you're trying so hard to hide. Think about what you felt when you walked cane-free, despite what everyone in the world told you was possible. Despite what _you_ believed was possible. And find your core. The thing inside you that you want more than anything. The _feeling_ of it. And then...step away from it all. And tell me who you see."

Rich listens to Elektra's words, still feeling unsettled by what she'd just seen in her newfound tutor but gradually starting to calm down as the anger and _danger_ she fears from Elektra simply isn't there. "...If you say so," she says eventually, shifting in place. She closes her eyes- she sees no way to literally turn them inside on herself, after a second's thinking- and tries to concentrate.

She'd been reluctant to sink back into the memory of the storm, what Elektra had called her 'vision', for fear of what might happen a second time. The experience had been amazing but overwhelming, and the first time she'd fallen so deep she'd almost lost herself, at least it seems that way looking back on all of it now. But still... there _had_ been something wondrous about it, she can remember. A feeling of power, of doing something that should be impossible for her. She wants to have that back again, that power.

Her brow furrows as she recalls memories more recent and still more irksome, Elektra making fun of her, laughing at her. She'd wanted- to be able to shut her up. That thought makes her a bit uncomfortable to process, but she can't deny it. To keep from being mocked, or to have the strength to prevent it in the first place- Rich Fisk, child of Wilson, craves respect. But the day with Elektra hadn't been all bad, she has to admit that. The things she'd done under Elektra's guidance- walking freely, so freely she still can't quite believe it, people no obstacle before her anymore- she was proud of that, she is, something that she can do that's special. She knows she wants that freedom, still, and... perhaps something else along with it. The thoughts bounce around Rich's mind, leaving her feeling tugged uncomfortably in several directions, trying to hold them all and plot a course to shore.

_'Step away from it all'_, Elektra's words echo in her ears, and... she hesitates. What exactly can she expect, if she does that? Where can she expect it to lead?

She... knows there's something different about her, in truth, but she's never been proud of that. Her deficiencies- her being a _disappointment_, Elektra's reminder comes back unpleasantly and jars her again- both the unforgettable facts part of her life and the truths deeper down she tries to hide. She's known the truth about herself, at least a part of it, but looking closely at herself is something she's never been comfortable doing. She's always shied away from those dangerous questions, afraid to open doors that should stay closed, and... she does it again, right now. Rich opens her eyes slowly, hissing out a short sigh of frustration. For a moment she's tempted to make something up- try to cover up her failure- before she remembers the first rule Elektra had demanded. _Honesty._

"I... don't know." she says, swallowing. "I know things that I want- things that I _really_ want- but who I am, what I want more than anything- I don't know yet." She grits her teeth, and shakes her head once, raising it towards Elektra. "But I _will_." she says, blind eyes shining with resolve as she "It's- it's just the first day of all this, right? I'll figure it out. I just... need a little more time."

"Of course you will," she nods matter-of-factly, the brisk motion of her hair swishing with the movement conveying her demeanor. "Enlightenment doesn't come in a day. Epiphanies happen in surprises, more often than on purpose. You find something - or someone...and suddenly the contrast shows you all the other colors you'd been missing. Kind of like how your vision came back to you, really. Just in a..." she waves a hand. "Spiritual sense." That scent again, of old blood, honey, the smell of anchovies on her breath from the city pizza. Elektra taps her fingers against her kneecaps, humming. "_But._ We only have three years. And I don't plan on renewing my contract when we're done. So - tell me. Do you have a secret you've never told anyone?"

Rich smiles hesitantly as the chiding she'd been half-expecting for that failure- _Poor little rich kid, not knowing what she wants-_ simply doesn't come. _She said she's not my mother, but she might actually be nicer than her in some ways,_ flickers in and out of her head as a brief thought she quickly has to put aside. "I guess I'll just be waiting for more surprises, then," she mutters, nodding and thinking over Elektra's words with a pensive look. Her nose wrinkles at the mix of scents, but it's not as much of a distraction this time, she finds.

"Uh." Rich colors at that sudden question. Well, surprises would not be in short supply with this lady, at least. "I... well, yeah, of course. Everyone has secrets," she defends, stalling, hair prickling on the back of her neck. "But..." She trails off. "You're sure no one else is going to overhear?" she murmurs after a second, before frowning, eyes narrowing to be more suspicious. "-And is this actually something you want to know for, uh. Spiritual reasons? Or are you just trying to mess with me, see what I'd be willing to tell you?"

"...If it's not that-" She blows out a breath, shifting uncomfortably. "I. I can probably come up with something. But I want to know a secret about you, too." The look on her face is hesitant but defiant. "I know you're the teacher, but... that's fair, isn't it? Something for me to have as... insurance."

_"Ooooooh!"_ Elektra positively _cheers_ at you. "Look at you, getting all _quid pro quo_ on me! You're your old man's boy, all right. That's good. Smart. You shouldn't give out your weaknesses freely." Your teacher stretches her arms, cracking her neck lazily. "To answer your questions, I wanted to know because it's relevant for your training. At the start of next year, two weeks from now, you're going to tell me that secret."

"..." She pauses. "And, since you were smart enough to ask, I'll trade you one of mine, too. If you can't or won't tell me at that moment, though, then we're done. Deal?"

Rich blinks in surprise at _that_ response from Elektra, eyebrows raising at the excitement, before a hesitant smile plays around her lips at the compliment, letting herself feel a measure of pride. "Thanks," she says lightly- the 'boy' is a slight sting detracting from Elektra's enthusiasm, but nothing that she hasn't heard before. "It's nice of you to be a good sport about it." Her eyebrows raise further at how far down the road Elektra is willing to kick this for them, and she feels a sudden measure of relief mixed with new wariness. She'd been expecting she might need to tell Elektra right now, but this development seems almost too good to be true. Almost. "...Deal," she says after a moment's contemplation, nodding, and holding her hand out towards Elektra in a half-instinctive offer of a handshake. "New Year’s, then. All right. I won't let you down, Elektra."

"You'd better not, Richie," she takes your hand and curls fingers as sturdy as rods of iron around yours. You feel...something pass between you, in that contact. A tingling. Maybe nothing. Maybe something. Elektra, invisible to your eyes, grins. "You've been off to a good start, so far. If you wind up being boring I _might_ just have to kill you."


	2. Danse Macabre (Part II)

[It's the night before Christmas.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD-OfjOg13M) All through Fisk Tower are decorations, tasteful and bright - not that you can see them, of course. An hour ago you were brought out with your father and mother for a public appearance: news travels fast in Hell's Kitchen. The child of the (in)famous Fisk couple, hospitalized in a very public incident. Concerns needed to be soothed - reputations bolstered. You'd shaken a few hands, posed for some pictures. Cut the ribbon around a purportedly very large Christmas tree. Been pulled and pushed and prodded and observed.

Now you are home, and your mother has taken you out to tour the tower with her. Her heels echo on the polished floors, bouncing around the narrow halls, and the lights are dim and barely noticeable when they fall on your skin. She's holding your hand to guide you, and talking quietly. "I hope that wasn't too much for you. Your father thought the exposure might be too soon, with your...training underway. I thought you might enjoy the fresh air." In the two weeks, you'd barely stepped out of the tower, except to practice your blind-crowd walking. Elektra had been drilling you on meditation, deepening your senses, recalling your second sight. In truth, this had been your first long trip out of the tower since the orchestra.

"It's all right, Mom," Rich says, swallowing a yawn as she walks beside her mother in the halls, tired after the night's events. "It- it was a lot of attention, but I did like having the fresh air. It was nice to have more of a break from the training."

...Well, that was partly true, but largely a mask. Receiving so much attention for the whole night, feeling so many eyes upon her, wasn't something she was unfamiliar with but it was something with which she felt out of practice, especially after the past couple weeks. It was a weighty reminder of her duties as a child of the Fisk family, always looming in the background, never to be escaped. "Anyway, it's over now," she resolves, nodding to herself.

"For the time being, at least," your mother sighs softly. "It's been a...busy year. And the next will be busier, I'm afraid. There's a lot to be done with the city, and you will be- " She stops speaking. "...Actually. I think we can save that for after the New Year. Right now it's time for you to pick your present." She stops walking and turns to face you. "If you're feeling up to it?" She asks coyly.

Rich's eyebrows draw together as her mother's voice cuts off suspiciously. I will be what? she wonders, but after a second decides it is probably best to leave that alone for now. "Oh!" She brightens at her mother's suggestion, feeling a second wind all of a sudden. "Uh, yes! I'm up to that!" she says eagerly. She knows she won't be able to get quite the sort of gift she really would want, but she still hopes she'll be able to pick something good.

"Good!" Your mother replies, pleased. "So - here is your first choice." She turns you so that your shoulders are aligned with hers, facing toward...something. "I was thinking your room is a little sparse. I thought we could spruce it up with something from my collection, maybe. I gave a thought to what might catch your notice the best and ordered some in."

"O...kay?" Rich says, a bit uncertainly in the wake of this new development. She knows the premise of her mother's business, but most of the details of her collection have always gone over her head, for obvious reasons. You didn't get me a painting, right, Mom? she keeps to herself, oriented to face the... whatever it is. "Erm. How is it supposed to catch my notice, exactly?" she asks, trying to focus her senses on anything she might be missing.

"Well, obviously you can't see the art," your mother admits playfully. "At least, not in the sense that I can. But there are other ways to see. Art is about interpretation...provocation and response. I've introduced blind patrons to several pieces before, and all of them came away with one that they liked...without ever laying clear eyes on it." She takes her hand, entwined with yours, and puts your fingers against a canvas. "This one is called Vortex. A young woman from Germany made it in a night, during a manic episode, and the next morning woke up and took it to be sold. I spotted the piece during my time travelling. Would you like me to describe it to you?"

"I... see." Rich is feeling more put out now at the realization her mother did not rise above her expectations, but she tries to keep the negativity from her voice. "Er. Well, you know what I mean," she mutters, before blinking in surprise as her mother takes her hand and brings her fingers up to touch the canvas, taking in the unfamiliar sensations with tentative interest. "...Sure," she says, becoming slightly intrigued despite herself at the sound of that description. "Go ahead. What is Vortex like?"

"Imagine...the cycling of an inverted black hole. Radiant white, absorbing colors and matter and debris into the infinity and nothingness at its heart. It exists in space and pulls it in, trailing the physicality of the universe like comets, leaving streaks that muddy its purity into a kaleidoscope of colors. Nothing is white anymore. It's all shades of gray, brown, navy...and come to the center, compressed, to make black."

"A snowstorm, mixing with an avalanche."

Rich listens, and closes her eyes, doing her best to visualize the painting as her mother describes it. The colors or hues still aren't something she can quite manage to see, but the words do manage to take a sort of shape in her minds-eye, lines and contours blending together, as best as she can try to imagine them. "Interesting," she murmurs, brow furrowed. She frankly has no idea how accurate the image she's tentatively come up with would be, but the sound of her mother's voice tells a story about the painting, one of at least a little interest in and of itself. "You... said this was the first choice, then?" she adds after a minute.

"Yes," she takes you along, walking some distance more. As you traverse, she begins to speak again. "It reminded me, in a way, of the day I met your father. He came looking for art - to my gallery.

You can hear the smile. Predict it, maybe. It's not the first time you've heard this story. Next comes... "He picked Rabbit in a Snowstorm. I asked him how it made him feel. He said it made him feel alone. Another day...he came and asked me out to dinner."

This story is familiar to her, Rich notes with a sardonic smile, but she lets her mother ramble on, getting lost in the nostalgia once again. She can't help feeling like these presents are much more for her mother's sake than her own, but... Well, there's nothing to be done about it now. "Is that the kind of line you'd recommend I tell someone I like, too?" she asks a bit teasingly as they walk down further. "I'm not sure if everyone would take that as well as you did."

Your mother hesitates. "...Do you feel alone, Richard?" She asks very slowly.

"...Um." Rich stills, feeling cold all of a sudden. That wasn't something she'd meant to reveal with just an idle question, and she can't help getting the sense her mother's own question is a minefield. "Not- not alone, no, I just..." she starts to say, hedging. "You know... I just don't have a lot of friends my own age. Things like that," she mutters, looking down at her feet. ...That wasn't the whole truth, but it was hopefully enough that her mother would find it more acceptable.

Your mother's hold on your hand tightens. Less a hold, now. More of a...grip. "I see," she murmurs. "Well, maybe we can find a way to solve that. Now, this one." The clearing of a throat, your mother running a hand down her dress to smooth the creases. "This one is called Sins of the Blind. A little on the nose, I know, but I've had this piece long before I've had you. It's a woman. Beautiful. Long, flowing white hair. She's standing in the night, beneath a crescent moon, garbed in a black robe. Her hands are raised, as if to ward off danger, and a glistening black snake is wrapped around her form...particularly her eyes. To her left, above, dangles a golden branch holding a pair of golden apples."

"The serpent blinded Eve to the sin of a forbidden fruit..." she muses. "And to the sin in her desire for it. At least, according to Biblical myth."

Rich winces at the added pressure from her mother's hand, but doesn't make a sound, just enduring the pain in silence. Her eyes do narrow at the title of the next painting, but she tries not to take it personally in the face of her mother's insistence, listening to the description again.

"...It sounds pretty," she murmurs after a long moment, letting out a sigh and feeling wistful at the mental image. Her mother's words about the beautiful woman stir some odd feelings in Rich's chest. "Forbidden fruit," she repeats under her breath. ...But I don't see why it should have been wrong just to want something. "Do you, uh- believe in a different version than the Bible's?" she asks, tilting her head with faint curiosity towards her mother at that comment at the last.

"I believe...if I did believe in God...that it's less about Eve's defiance of His commands and more her defiance of His design." Your mother turns to you, wistful. "Eve was made perfect. By defying her creator's intent for her existence, she injured perfection. Spat in her maker's eye. A crime of that scale can't be easily forgiven."

Rich nods slowly, discomfort churning in her stomach at her mother's commentary. I don't think I'm going to pick this one. "Eve probably didn't agree that she was made perfect," she mutters, a bit of bite to her voice that she doesn't quite mean to let spill out. "...Anyway, um. Thanks for telling me. Is there a third painting, after this one?"

"You're right. She didn't agree." Vanessa Fisk nods. "And she reaped what was sown. It's tragic, really. But thanks for listening. I ramble more and more these days," she laughs. "I swear I'm growing batty decades before my time. Now for the last..."

Yeah, 'Reaped what was sown' is certainly one way of putting it. More like punished for something outside her control... "Mhm," Rich replies, before registering that more of a response might be warranted . "You're not getting batty," she assures her mother with a soft snort. "And anyway, your clients probably like the commentary." Shaking her head, she proceeds with her mother to the last option.

"Here is the last one..." Vanessa stops, and brings your hand to the canvas again, letting it linger there. "It's called Death and the Maiden... What does the name bring to mind, for you?"

"..." Rich shivers at the thought, biting her lip. Death... "A... young girl. Looking off into- a wasteland?" She's not sure where that idea of the afterlife had come from, into her mind, but it's there now and unwilling to leave. "She's-" Lonely. Regretful. "Not ready to go, I think," she thinks aloud, fingers tracing lightly over the canvas.

Your mother is quiet.

"It's an interesting assessment," she acknowledges slowly. "The name alone is evocative, isn't it? Yet it leaves all the pieces for you to put together yourself. Do you want to know what I see? Or would you like to leave the picture as it exists in your mind?" She sounds...oddly curious as to your answer. You sense she will respect your choice, because she is intrigued by the conclusions you drew without sight to draw them for you.

Rich has a feeling that she made her mother uncomfortable with that answer, and she shifts her feet, grimacing faintly with regret. "I'd like to know," she says, with no real hesitation. "I..." She does pause as she contemplates the last. "I like the version that I have in my head- but I want to know what the real one looks like to people, too."

"There's no real way to look at art, Richie," your mother chides with a chuckle. "Even the creator can only explain their intent. What art is, is up to perspective. I like to think - if the Mona Lisa was able to look at herself, that she would be just another patron. Looking for definition." Vanessa sighs. "Oh, and I'm going on again. I really do need to sell some more of these pieces, get all this chatter out of me. But what I see...”

“I see a maiden in a transparent, silky white bodice. A skirt of deep, dark red wraps around her thighs, her waist, and trails behind her rippling in the wind like her golden waves of hair. She floats in the blue cloudy skies. And with hands on her back, leaning behind and past her...A silhouette of a man, in a shroud of liquid shadow, face pressing out against the sheet of darkness but not penetrating. A pair of veined, stretched bat wings peeking from either shoulder. Their embrace is close, intimate...contrasting without clashing. Her fertility, her life...and its desolation, destruction, emptiness. Death touches her without diminishing her. It's almost a dance."

Rich lets out a small laugh of her own at the idea of the Mona Lisa looking at herself. "I wonder how satisfied she would be, to see that," she muses, before quieting at her mother's description of the last piece. She closes her eyes, tracing her fingers over the canvas again as she listens, a pensive smile touching her lips as she hears the explanation of both figures, the contrast between them both, the strange near-dance that they're both captured in. "...I think I like the sound of this one," she says after a long moment, letting out a sigh. "It's, heh." A short laugh escapes her lips again. "Better than what I could have come up with. Even if I can't see it- it's something that I'd enjoy having for myself."

"Then it's yours!" Your mother hugs you close. "I'm glad I could find something that spoke to you. Merry almost-Christmas, lovely."

"Can you give your mother a present, now?"

"Merry almost-Christmas, Mom," Rich echoes, a more genuine smile on her face now as she hugs her mother back. "...Ah?" She tilts her head slightly as she pulls back. "Sure, but isn't it a little early- well. You did just give me mine, so fair is fair," she decides, possible subtext of her mother's question flying over her head. "Do you want me to go get it out of my room, or...?"

"Oh! So you did have one," unseen, she raises an eyebrow. "I think we can save it for tomorrow, though. No, I'd just like a little..." she presses her lips against your cheek. "Kiss. Like that."

"Huh? Yeah, of course," Rich says, blinking. "But- oh. Okay." She briefly considers making a show of protest- she's not a kid anymore, after all- but if her mom is going to ask like this, she gets the feeling it would be important. "...I can do that." She raises a hand to feel through the air for her mother's face, before pausing, lowering it. No. Let's try... Extending her senses, she tries to focus on the faint warmth of her mother's face, the thin chemical scent of her makeup, and does her best to navigate the small space to press her lips against her mother's own cheek, briefly.

You kiss the side of her nose. She giggles, a decidedly girlish sound from a very womanly woman. "That'll do, Richie. That'll do."

*******

Christmas Day, 2031.

You wake to the smell of warm cinnamon and the gentle caress of scented wood burning in the family fireplace. The room's curtains pull back gently to allow the faint tingle of light to shine down on your skin, the curling fingers of chill from the winter-cooled windows winding through the air and grasping for the heat buzzing in its depths. Zeus greets you with a cheerful salutation, and informs you that - as always - your parents are awake and gathered in the usual place for Christmas celebration. Two weeks into your training and Elektra has gone on vacation for the next seven days, with little but a message passed on to your father by a random guard as she strolled out into the mysterious aether she had come from.

Or so it had seemed. Another, secret message had been left written on your pillowcase in braille with marker thick enough to trace by your fingers, which had only been discovered when you went to bed after having your new art-piece hung the night before. "Keep up your meditation practice. Listen to your senses. Get outside and put yourself in new situations wherever you can. When I come back, I'm going to test you. Good choice on the art, by the way." Zeus had claimed nobody had entered your bedroom since you'd left it that afternoon, sleeping off the soreness of physical exercises your taskmaster had put you through.

Rich stirs awake in the morning light, yawning to herself and covering her mouth with a hand on teachings prevailing even through the fog of drowsiness. "Good morning, Zeus. Merry Christmas," she mutters, sitting up in bed and blinking sleep out of her eyes. Idling there for a moment, her fingers trace again over the message from what must have been Elektra, and the question of just how she'd gotten in here without Zeus's notice reasserts itself in Rich's mind. At least she hadn't done anything worse, when slipping in. As far as Rich knows, at least.

Trying to shake away those thoughts, she dresses herself in what her mother should deem the appropriate attire, asking the odd word of advice from Zeus to check that she's picked the right items. Then, collecting three wrapped presents from under her bed, she heads out into the hall and down to meet her parents.

No cane, this time, just as it had been for the last two weeks.

There's a reasonable likelihood that, even before Elektra, you could have accomplished such a feat in a space as familiar as these halls. She had asserted as much when you'd first met, and whether or not it is that familiarity or your steadily improving ability to "listen" to your own senses you do indeed traverse with ease to your destination. Caneless. Every so often, as you walk, you find that you will notice a small spark of that strange lightning in the pool of grey that is (was) your world, and see how it trails through the air and illuminates shapes and passerby walking silhouettes. Sometimes, it seems as if you can predict what those silhouettes - people - are going to move like before they do so.

Just before you step into the family room, you sense that your father is waiting for you...alone. Your mother's scent is faint - still upstairs, getting ready? But only Wilson Fisk is verifiably present.

Oh. Rich stills half a step outside the doorway as she senses that. For a second, the thought flits through her mind of waiting in the hall for her mother to come down- it would make a more predictable situation than a rare moment alone with her father, like this- but she shakes her head, discarding the thought with a frown. She'd dealt with Elektra, she could deal with him. And this could count as a 'new situation' (sort of) too, right?

"Good morning, Father," she greets, stepping in through the door. "Uh... Merry Christmas," she adds, unable to keep a bit of hesitation from her voice that time.

He hesitates as well. You'd greeted him, after all, without a cane or any pause after entering - as if you'd known he was there immediately. But your father rallies quickly, with a short "Ah. To you as well, Richard..." you get the sense that your father is looking you over. Or is about to? "...I see you are making strides." There is a long pause. Your father clears his throat. "Please, sit. Your mother will be with us in a moment."

"Literally. Yes," Rich says with a small smile, tapping her foot idly against the floor. She frowns slightly at the odd sensation of- deja vu? No, what would the opposite of that be called?- before shaking it off. "...My lessons have been helpful so far. Thank you again for finding uh, Elektra for me." The silence stretches between them for a long moment, and Rich shifts awkwardly in place. "Of course," she says quickly at his request, nodding and navigating by her senses over to a chair, though she does feel with a hand as a precaution to keep from crashing into it. She shifts the presents in her lap, and doesn't speak.

Your father does not sit across from you. He sits beside you, all three-hundred-and-fifty pounds of him vibrating down the reinforced legs of the chair and into the floor. He folds his hands on the table, the neck of his shirt crinkling softly as he turns to look at you, saying nothing.

Rich doesn't move to acknowledge the noise she hears of his turning, though her polite smile does thin slightly as she wonders what exactly is going through his mind. "Did everything go all right last night, Father?" she asks after a second, shifting in her chair. "My making an, um, public appearance, I mean. I know why it was important to show I was fine, but..." She trails off with a slight shrug.

"Ah, yes," your father nods his head - you can hear and feel the telltale seesawing in the air. "Absolutely." Another pause. "Your mother tells me that you feel...perhaps...lonesome. Here, in the tower. She fears that you are becoming, perhaps, isolated." He pauses meaningfully, waiting for you to confirm or deny.

"Ah, good. That's a relief," Rich says with a nod and a faint smile, before Wilson says something decidedly less relieving and it drops off her face. "...Oh." Rich swallows, a new tension in the pit of her stomach. "She mentioned that. Um." She casts around for the right words for a second, biting her lip. "I'm not sure about isolated," she says, voice a bit softer now. "But... maybe. Yes. I like Dex, and my tutors are fine, but, well..." But the fact that the closest thing she had to friends were a bodyguard and the home AI did weigh on her, sometimes. "It can get lonely, I guess."

Your father takes in your words with steady and even breathing, accompanied by the faint but decisive thunder of a strong heart powering a strong body and mind. He shifts slightly in his seat, and the legs squeak loudly in the air that is noiseless save for the crackle-and-pop of the fireplace. "When I was your age - or close to it, at the least - I, too, was...lonely." He admits. "It was a feeling I couldn't shake. A scratch on the roof of my mouth. A weight in my throat. A heaviness in my chest." As ever with you, the words were spoken in a strange, halting, one-three-two step manner that gave the impression of an interrupted record player. "That feeling was numbed for a while by purpose, and erased by your mother."

You can hear the smile. "But love... takes time. And in truth, my circumstances were unique. Different. Not all needs can be met the same - nor would I wish my long wait on you. But even before your mother, I had...a friend." He pauses. "I have not told you of Wesley before."

Rich stirs as she hears her father starting to speak, turning her head towards him. She's not expecting him to open up so much- even if his cadence is the same as ever, hearing him talk about his childhood is very rare. Though her mother- that's more familiar territory, she notes with a faint smile cutting through her wistful feelings. But the direction he goes from her in this case is another surprise. "Wesley...?" She shakes her head slowly, frowning now. "No, you- you haven't. Who was he?"

"My first...and last....friend," your father admits slowly. "He was killed, years before you were born. To strike at me. The loss was..." He draws in a breath. "Something I had never felt before or since. When my mother's passing came, it was anticipated. Gentle, insofar as - death - can be. Some separations are eased with foreknowledge. Others, perhaps, sting the sharper. But Wesley..." Wilson Fisk, unseen to your eyes, closes his own and rallies his strength. Opens them. "I do not regret having known him. I regret not having had the chance, sooner, to know him. I would not deny you that chance...to find companionship. Of your choosing." He is looking at you again. "You know that. Don't you?"

Last. Something about that stirs a chill in Rich, again. A sense of finality, where she can't help but fear she might only have one chance at a friend herself. She's not used to her father being like this. Not sure what to say. She feels a strange, unbidden urge to say something to try and... sympathize? But before she can find the words, he's speaking again. And now he expects an answer of her.

"I... yes," she says, again with unintended hesitation, because she really hadn't ever been sure he had meant it. "I- I know that, Father. I just, ah-" Did you think it was my choice to stay locked up in here until I turn eighteen? the unwanted, traitorous thought flashes across her mind. But she holds it in, keeps her mouth shut. It's Christmas. It's not the time to say things like that, even if it would ever be appropriate to defy her father. "I would... appreciate being able to act on that choice, more," she settles on after a moment's pause.

A hand heavier than both your own settles over yours. An unfamiliar, warm, pulsing weight. He could break all the bones of yours beneath his palm with a strong squeeze. He doesn't. "Would you...like to end your...private educations? Perhaps they can be, ah, supplemented with more public endeavors. You have your mother's grace. Other children your age would doubtlessly flock to your side, once you were settled."

Rich feels a twinge of strangeness- brief alarm, and discomfort- at the unexpected weight of her father's hand on hers. But it hits her, after a second, that he means something comforting by the gesture. ...She's pretty sure he does, at any rate. Her head snaps up at what he asks her, blind eyes widening. "End my- yes, yes," she says eagerly, perhaps too eagerly, but not willing to pass up this chance now that it's offered. "I really would like to do that, Father. I-"

Him saying that she has her mother's grace stirs a strange feeling in her chest, for reasons that he couldn't guess at, but she pushes through it as she continues. "I want to meet them. I can get around well now, better than before. I'm ready."

"...Then it will be done. I..." Your father inhales softly, and squeezes your hand very gently. "I see now that holding your time for such things back was...a mistake. I underestimated you. I..." the admission comes painfully. "I feared for you."

"Thank you," Rich breathes at his acceptance, a tension that she doesn't know how long she's held releasing from her chest. She's not going to deny feeling like it was a mistake, so she says nothing. At least, nothing at first. "Feared... for me?" she repeats, mouth forming an 'o' of surprise. "But- why? I mean... after the hospital, I guess I see why, but apart from that-" She trails off. "What were you afraid of?" she asks softly.

Wilson Fisk exhales tiredly. "The world has changed...since I was a boy. Become deadlier. Louder. More...uncertain of itself. But something that has not changed is...fear. Of change. Of challenge." He looks at you. "My childhood was not a happy one. In my home...and out of it. I was not always so heavy because I lifted barbells," you can imagine the smile. "And I was shy. Inexperienced. Too smart for the interests of other children, but too lacking in initiative or appeal to attract them. The world is not always kind or generous to the young. I hoped to spare you that. I never considered...that I was robbing you, instead. Of the opportunity to enjoy what I had not. For that...I hope that you can forgive me."

Rich listens in silence to his explanation, pondering. ...Well, fear of change is something she can understand, to a degree. His reasoning is unfamiliar to her, she can grasp some of the logic behind his words but not the meaning of them, but still, it is enough to make her think. And perhaps change her mind.

"I didn't know," she says eventually, pensively now. "I didn't... think of the world outside our house that way. It can be loud and-" Scary, she doesn't say out loud, not wanting to give him reason to retract his offer. "Well. I guess I can see why you didn't want me to be with them," she acknowledges after a moment's pause. "And..."

She struggles with the words for a second, not quite sure if they're fully true even as they stick in her throat, but she eventually decides it doesn't matter. "I forgive you, Father."

["...thank you."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk4YBDaXGZE) He lets the words hang for a while, contemplative and...perhaps relieved. When he withdraws his hand, it is to rummage into his pocket. "I have a gift for you. I meant it to be for your last birthday. But...the time didn't feel right. Last night, I decided. Now is the right time." He puts a pair of metal pieces into your palm. It takes a moment to recognize them as...cuff-links. A matching pair, well-worn and yet kept in good condition. "They were my father's," your own father explains quietly. "When he died, your grandmother gave them to me. I kept them for a long time as a reminder of who I was...and who I was not. Eventually I let them go, after meeting your mother, though I would return to them from time to time. A legacy that...liberated and constrained, at once, sometimes." "Now...I give them to you."

Rich lets out a quiet sigh, feeling a relief herself that she hadn't quite expected as the words hang in the air. She perks up at the mention of a gift, brow furrowing at his explanation of the right time. The objects pressed into her hand, once she manages to recognize them, are a mystery. A questioning look settles on her face as she rubs her thumb over the cuff links, listening to his words. She has the sense of a darkness behind his words as he mentions his father, a story there she's not familiar with. But his words are enough for her to ruminate on, try and piece together what she can.

"...Thank you, too, Father," she says after a second, clasping her hand shut around the cufflinks. "I- never knew your father, so I'm not sure... what exactly they meant to you. But-" She weighs them in her hand, moving it slightly up and down, weighing her words as well. "I'll make them that important to me, too." "Merry Christmas."

"Mm...yes. Merry Christmas." He nods affirmingly. You both sit there awkwardly. Your father's arms twitch, like he wants to raise them, but they remain planted at his sides. He grunts and rises to his feet. "I should...finish breakfast. Your mother will be down soon. I'm so glad we could talk. I..." he hesitates. "I should do this. More. With you." He quickly steps to the stove and sets about his work, leaving you to your thoughts.

"...I'd like that," Rich acknowledges softly as he steps away. This really had gone much better than she'd expected. And the prospect of it happening again is far less scary than it would have seemed, a day before. It's not long before her mother comes down, and after they share breakfast, she has her gifts to share for them and Dex. Her mother gets a set of paints and brushes, which Rich presents awkwardly with a smile and blush, explaining that she didn't know what was good taste in art but since her mother did, maybe she might like to try making some of her own sometime.

Dex gets an autographed baseball, which Rich is proud to point out is (at least according to the online seller... according to Zeus) autographed by Babe Ruth, someone she lacks the baseball knowledge to fully appreciate. She got it for a hundred dollars, and is still surprised more people weren't bidding on it, given how it must have been really rare. (She's not quite sure why Dex stifles a laugh when she admits that part.)

And for her father, she presents a cookbook of New York cuisine. Dex had helped her write the note tucked under the cover, written in a clumsy hand but finally legible after a dozen-odd attempts to get it right. The note reads, "For the father of Hell's Kitchen."

Your mother's response is a funny one - she laughs and takes your gift gracefully, hugging you close. But, she says, she's already made some of her own. And nothing will her top her first and most beautiful creation. Your father takes the cookbook with a raised eyebrow that you can hear, but when he reads the note he chuckles like you have never heard before and hugs you. It's happy and proud and perhaps a touch...too enclosing. But a hug, nonetheless

When Dex gets his gift, your first time able to really set aside time with him since Elektra's arrival on scene, he is quiet for a while. He lets you explain what it is, where you got it, and he barely manages to stifle his laughter when he comes to a realization that escapes you. "Was worried you forgot about poor old Dex, over here..." he flips the baseball in his hand, letting it smack down into his palm. He smells clean, absent of the scent of raw meat - blood - although his voice is a little hoarser than you remember. "But this? This, uh..."

He pauses. "I don't know what to say. Except thanks. Nobody, uh...gets me Christmas presents or anything." He bulldozes past that admission before you can reply, perking up. "And hey! Uncle Dex didn't forget about you, either!" You can hear the leading, coy smirk. "How 'bout that trip to Chinatown? Our little secret."

Rich takes a second to understand the meaning of her mother's reply, but she blushes harder when she realizes, a silly smile spreading on her face as she returns the hug. She's briefly worried at her father's initial response, but the chuckle he lets out reassures her the gift was a good choice, even if his hug is rather more... weighty than her mother's.

"Of course I didn't forget!" she admonishes Dex at his suggestion, crossing her arms and smiling. Her smile fades a bit at the admission that no one else does give him presents, but she can't manage to reply before he makes the situation... rather more awkward. "Uh." She gets a distinctly more embarrassed smile on her face at that suggestion, rubbing the back of her neck. What with her eyes and everything with Elektra since, she'd almost forgotten that he'd made that offer to her. And it would probably be much simpler and easier if she turned him down, not to mention it'd avoid encouraging his... misunderstanding, but-

"You know what," she says, letting out a hesitant laugh. "What the heck. Why not." "...And you're welcome," she gets in a bit impishly before he can reply, this time. "Merry Christmas, Dex."

Later, when Elektra discovered exactly what you had done and why it had happened, she would laugh and laugh and laugh.

*******

[It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5m-sgtwFck) \- or so you're told, at the least. Winter welcomes you into its frosty embrace as you stroll out with Dex into a city wrapped in a blanket of festivity, cutting winds, and clouds weeping scatterings of snow. True to his word, your bodyguard intends on taking you to Chinatown for an afternoon of adolescent fun. Perhaps unwisely, you opted to indulge him. With a freshly prepared thermos of your favorite warm drink and the cheery tunes of the Beatles to accompany you (Dex had a fondness for puns, to be sure – and baby, you’re a rich woman), you are now being driven to what you've been informed is the best place for discretion if you're looking for kicks in New York. Dex, of course, has assumed that you're looking for a boy around your age to practice your first steps into puberty. But he's also made sure to stress that today is your day, and he's willing to take you wherever you want to go. "No questions asked," even.

For the first time in your life, you have total control over your destination.

Rich sips from the thermos of hot cocoa on the drive down to Chinatown, briefly amused at the choice of song but tuning it out after a minute. She's starting to feel increasingly nervous as time passes and they no doubt get closer to their destination. Was this a good idea? Dex had said it would be a place where she could be effectively anonymous, or at least have people willing to look the other way. But still... "O-okay, so..." she speaks up to Dex. "What... kinds of options are there for things to do in Chinatown? Apart from the one that we, uh," She feels her cheeks warming up. "Discussed a while ago." ...She's not ruling that out completely, even if the thought of it is incredibly embarrassing, but she could really use some other ideas to distract herself right now.

"Well, for the above-board stuff there's the usual places. Fish market, fried dumplings, gift shops..." Dex suggests disinterestedly. "Little people places. If we're feeling a little more adventurous, there is Columbus Park. Used to be a ghetto back in the 19th century, but now it's all baseball fields, trees, and landscaping. Played little league there once when I was a kid. There's also a tattoo parlor I know of, though I don't know if you'd be in for something like that. And I think your mom might be a little pissed with me. Not that I mind, just, y'know," a light shrug. "Gotta take some licks sometimes, if you wanna have fun."

Dex pauses. "...or. If you're feeling like pulling one over on some coyote-types, we could go hit up some back-room card games. See if you can clean house now that you're a blind Rain Man. Or...whatever it is that Natchios woman has you doing."

"Huh..." Rich listens intently to the suggestions Dex makes. "I'm not sure if I'm good enough yet to play baseball at all. And, uh," She reddens. "A tattoo might be a little too much, for now. But-" Her eyebrows raise at Dex's last suggestion, and a hesitant smile spreads on her face. "That... actually sounds pretty fun, as something to try," she says, smirking. Something that only I can do, now that I've learned to. "Sure, let's try to do that first. But, uh- what is a coyote? I'm pretty sure you don't mean the actual animal."

"You know, less-than-reputable types. Coyote's a bad word. More like...sharks. They run rackets, trick the locals into getting into bets and tables they can't win, then collect the earnings and give cuts to the right people to look the other way. Bad guys." Dex chuckles. "We should give the naughty folks some Christmas attention, don't you think?"

"Ohh, okay." Rich nods, expression clearing up. If they were talking about bad people, that made her feel better about taking money away from them. ...Is what she'd like to think, except she hadn't really thought twice about it even before Dex had clarified that. She frowns briefly, deciding to shelve that thought away for later. "Sure. Sounds like we won't find anyone who would be nice, there," she adds with a small smile. "It'd be like... doing our civic duty, in a way, right?"

"Now you're getting it!" Dex verbally applauds. "Just being good citizens. Your old man would be proud."

As you are whisked further into the reaches of Chinatown, you can begin to sense how different the various areas of New York really are from each other, in a way that goes beyond accents and territorial pride. Hell's Kitchen had its own familiar array of sounds and voices, yes. But the smells were different, too. The way the buildings and streets were arrayed, their sizes and shapes and contents, affected the way the winds moved down the streets and through the alleyways. The people talked in different languages - varying Asian dialects that you had no ear for, at the moment. Almost like walking into a new frontier, where everything was new and nobody - yourself included - was familiar.

The promise of backroom gambling is found in a basement beneath a dry-cleaning store ("Laundry's a good place to do your laundry," Dex tells you). The two of you are waved in past a solid metal door into a space that smells of cigarettes, heat, and the kind of cologne old men liked to wear. Dex clucks his tongue for your benefit. You can hear muttering as the two of you approach the table, your arrival clearly unexpected - though nobody has said anything that sounds like 'Fisk' or 'Richard' as of yet. Oddly enough, you can feel in the air that someone around your age also appears to be sitting at the table, in a player's seat. "Looks like they're playing blackjack." Your bodyguard notes. "And they brought out their secret weapon today. This'll be interesting."

Rich starts to feel... unexpectedly off-kilter as they drive downtown and she is gradually exposed to the environment starting to change around her. She starts to guess some of why things are feeling different, hearing scattered voices in another language all but confirming that in her mind, but it still is a strange feeling to be immersed in. She starts to feel slightly more adjusted to it by the time they arrive, but still, there's a faintly disconcerting sense of something in the background. And not just from the old-man cologne. I'm not sure if this place is worse than the pizza parlor, Rich thinks, wrinkling up her nose. But at least that had helped prepare her for something like this.

"...Secret weapon?" Rich replies to Dex in a whisper. "What do you mean? Do you know who that is? The... one who's my age." That was definitely unexpected. "By the way, how do you play blackjack?" she adds, even more quietly.

Dex gives you a quick run-down on the rules, and you note that it looks like there are three other players besides the mysterious 'secret weapon.' As for the identity of that person... "Huh, you can tell she's your age? Spooky." Dex keeps his own voice low, too, casually pulling out a seat for you to settle down. "I don't know much about her - Chinatown's a bit of a steel trap, like I told you. She plays a lot of the high-stakes games run by the management here...and she always wins the biggest ones. Apparently, she's called Domino."

Rich listens carefully to the rules, starting to feel a little more antsy about this, especially at the talk of the secret weapon. "Interesting," she mutters. Domino? I wonder what she's like. Or what she'll think of me. "Uh." Rich sits down in the chair Dex pulled out for her, and clears her throat. "Deal me in," she says, trying to emulate a bit of her father's business voice, and hoping she sounds like she knows anything of what she's doing. ...I really hope someone speaks English.

You're dealt in, with Dex putting up his Christmas bonus as stakes. The group consists of several mixed voices, two male and one female - the men are English-speakers and seemingly nothing but. The dealer flicks out your cards, and you are able to reach over their surface to detect the designations. "Dealer's showing an eight," your bodyguard informs you. You've got an ace and a three. Your opponents' totals number at twelve, sixteen, and nine so far...Domino, who has yet to say a word, has two kings.

Rich rubs her fingertips over the cards' glossy surfaces, a bit concerned about the source of money Dex put in for them but taking it as added incentive not to lose. "Hit," she says after a second. No real option if Domino already has twenty... lucky draw, I guess.

You get a six! Sixteen tries to hit and goes over. Twelve hits and gets a nineteen. Nine hits and gets an ace! The three of you are now sitting at twenty.

Finally, Domino speaks: "I'll stay." Beyond all reason, the man with a hand matching your own decides to hit and is subsequently knocked out of the running. When it comes time to make your choice, you find your mouth opening...and your nerves tingle with a strange anxiety. Your sight flashes, and you see your hands receiving a card from the dealer, only to feel the sting of a three that sends you careening over the twenty-one limit.

Rich opens her mouth- Even if the odds are bad, I can't beat her if I don't hit, right? and then shivers as a strange feeling overtakes her, feeling an unreal phantom sensation before the moment passes. What... the heck? "S-stay," Rich says, unable to keep a quaver from her voice. What was that? Since when can I do that?

The dealer reveals their hand - a total of twenty! A tie - or a "push" - is declared and neither yourself nor Domino lose any money, while the others pay in. Dex draws in a steady breath, giving you a subtle pat on the back. "Nice call, kid." There's a tingling energy in the air...slightly more agitated than you first noticed when you walked in. The cards are dealt out again. Your opponents come up with a fourteen, a ten, an eighteen, while you get a thirteen. Domino gets a sixteen.

"Thanks," Rich murmurs in response to Dex. "Not planning to let you down." She stays quiet until the next round gets dealt out, wondering at the faintly agitated feeling. "Hit," Rich says, smirking to herself as she starts to feel more accustomed to the sensations of the others' players hands. This is pretty fun. “So, uh…” she murmurs after a moment, tilting her head in the direction of the ‘secret weapon’ girl. “Domino, right? Do you… come here often?” That’s the sort of thing people say in places like this, isn’t it?

You get a sixteen! The others go through their hits and stays, until Domino's turn comes. As she opens her mouth, you open yours and suddenly the room is silent as you feel their totally-functional eyeballs rotate to lock onto you. You smell a hint of oil and metal as Dex shifts slightly, his jacket sliding ever so slightly more open. "...Clearly you do not," the girl across from you replies quietly, with a touch of bemused disdain. She returns her focus to the dealer and hits. It's a nineteen.

Rich feels rather like sinking into the floor at that rebuke from Domino, and shifts a little in her seat before her turn comes up again. "Hit," she says, nostrils flaring briefly at the scent she's picking up from Dex. Should I be... worried about that? "Um. I'm new. Yeah. You seem good at this game, though," she tries again. "It's... impressive?" Complimenting people is one of the lessons she's learned for proper social behavior, but she can't shake a feeling that this girl might be an exception to the rules.

Once again, you get a glimpse of the results of your choice right before you make it...you get twenty-one! Dex seems to relax a little as the attention on you is returned to the game, although the other patrons are clearly morbidly curious how your play at conversation is going to pan out.

"Yes. It is," Domino agrees. "I'd like the deck shuffled." The dealer, obligated to comply, does so. As the cards are sliding and switching, your vision pops and you can glimpse a haze of particles scattered around the dealer's hands...and specifically the cards. You see certain cards abruptly change their destination and reorder themselves on top, so fast you doubt any of the other players noticed. They are dealt out... Domino gets a twenty-one and immediately wins.

Rich's brief moment of triumph at the victory is arrested when she shudders again as the feeling overwhelms her. What... the hell? How did that just, what was that-? She pauses as Domino is dealt a twenty-one, and her eyes narrow. Oh. "She's cheating," she whispers to Dex, leaning back. "I don't- I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure it has to be her. What do we do?"

"...cheat harder, kid." Dex whispers back. "Or I could...teach them a lesson. If you want." The cards are dealt out, although one player quits the game, with an air of frustration that seems almost...telegraphed. Domino has a seventeen - and the aura around the room seems to thin a little, grow less active. Your cards are about to be dealt out, and you see that you are about to receive a total of a twelve...

A lesson? Rich wonders, shivering at the air around him as he offers that. "No, that's- that's fine, don't do that yet. I'll... try." And how am I supposed to do that, exactly? Rich wonders at that telegraphed feeling from the quitting player for a second, before her eyebrows raise. ...Oh, I see. This is like Dex said, they must be in on it, she thinks, frowning and trying to focus on the players left in the game now, seeing what vibes she can pick up from them. So if some of them are the sharks... which person here is the target? "Hit," she says absently, more focused on her efforts than the deal at that moment.

Of the four of you remaining, you can be reasonably certain that Domino and at least one of the others are in on the rig. That leaves you and one other... You were an unexpected arrival, judging by the reactions when Dex brought you - meaning that you cannot be the mark. Aside from Domino, you have an adult man and woman - the woman...she's exceptionally relaxed. Focused, but only barely so. No jitters or coiled tension like someone trying to win.

The man, though...he smells like sweat, hidden under a layer of antiperspirant. And he doesn't smell like Chinatown - not like Hell's Kitchen, either. There's a flavor of something else in his clothes. And the particles in the room, the strange energy, seems to be swirling around him.

Rich's eyes narrow as she picks up on those impressions from the other players. Gotcha, she thinks with a dark feeling of triumph. She's not... quite sure what to make of the scent on the man, but she has enough to go on for now, at least. I might be able to see their cards, but I can’t reshuffle the deck. I don't have a good idea for how to cheat harder, but... "Miss Domino?" Rich says, about as sweetly as she can manage, the sort of voice she uses to try and persuade her mom into doing something. "Could you please cut that out? It's rather annoying, and if you don't, I might have to have a word with this nice man sitting across from me." She smiles. ...Maybe if I can stop her cheating, it'll even out, at least.

"...cut what out?" The clueless mark replies, bewildered and now...suspicious. "What is this kid talking about? Are you hustling me?"

"Play or don't, old man," the confirmed-cheater replies coolly, though you can tell by the sound of her voice that she isn't looking at him. She's looking at you. "If you wanna forfeit that barber shop of yours on the word of a slumming rich kid, be my guest."

But now, Domino is sweating a little under her clothes...and her head tilts just a little in the direction of the woman at the table.

The woman has been drumming her fingers in a rhythmic beat. A few taps, a line, another few taps...

...Oh, so he actually sounds like he doesn't deserve to lose, here, Rich thinks, now feeling some actual guilt hearing what the mark might be giving up if the con is successful. I don't know if I'll win anything at this point, but... She narrows her eyes pointedly as she feels Domino's eyes on her own. You shouldn't be helping rob people like this. "I think something bad might be about to happen," Rich murmurs to Dex, leaning back in her seat. "Um- do you happen to know, um, Morse Code?" she recites in a whisper, trying to convey the rhythm she's picking up to her bodyguard.

"Yeah. It means...W-I-N."

"...The woman. She's the one doing the Morse? Probably Domino's handler."

"Sir? Will you be playing further?" The dealer prompts. The mark hesitates, throwing a look at you, then nods slowly. "...yes. I will be."

Why would she be saying... Rich wonders at Dex's translation, before a thought occurs to her and she jolts. Telling Domino not to let me interfere, I guess, but- she's feeling nervous now herself. And- she's a kid too. About my age. Just what would happen to her if she doesn't win? "...Yeah, that's the one," Rich murmurs to Dex. "...Do you, um. Think there's a chance Domino doesn't want to be here? With these- whatever kinds of people they are, exactly." Rich looks at the mark and grimaces now, sighing. "Up to you, sir," she says.

"Well, the thing about having secret weapons is...you don't want them not doing what they're told. So, maybe?" Dex shrugs imperceptibly...to everyone except you, that is. "If she's figured out a surefire way of cheating, kid probably caught someone's eye and they realized they could take advantage. Why?"

"And you?" the dealer asks. "If you're willing to forfeit your stake, you are free to leave."

"Yeah, but you might not be leaving..." Dex sneers under his breath.

"How about this?" Domino offers suddenly. "Since you're uncomfortable playing further, I'll quit. And you can play with a clear head. Sound good?" ...she sounds nervous.

Rich gets a sinking feeling at Dex's speculation, now starting to feel uncomfortable for entirely different reasons over all this. Caught someone's eye. So maybe she's not one of the sharks. Maybe she's just someone like me who got unlucky. "I'm... thinking. Give me a second," she mutters, contemplating ideas.

Her eyebrows raise at Domino's offer. That's. Different. Why is she-? "Would... everyone here be okay with that suggestion?" she asks, making a show of 'looking' around the table. She waits to hear the woman's answer, before saying, "You don't need to quit. I'll stay in for one more hand, at the least." She leans back towards Dex, no longer hesitant. She's not sure what's best but- she has to do something, right? “Could you go… somewhere over there near Domino- but not the woman- and tap out to her… ‘D-O-Y-O-U-N-E-E-D-H-E-L-P’?” she whispers. "During the next hand."

You can sense your bodyguard's burning curiosity...but he did agree to do whatever you asked him. No questions asked. "Sure. Okay."

He...reluctantly...leaves your side and decides to move over toward Domino, off to the side where he cannot be reasonably expected to have a view of anyone's cards - but within her sightline, by your reckoning. Idly, he reaches into his coat and flips the baseball you gave him between his hands, waiting for the time to send your message.

"I am fine with this, so long as we can actually get back to playing," the handler woman replies curtly. With your answer given, the next hand is prepared to be dealt. Dex's hands shift as he leans against a wall and begins to tap his fingers...

Then, the door to the card room opens...and heavy footsteps accompanied by two pairs of lighter feet enter. The mark gasps, standing abruptly from the table. "Lonnie-! What are you doing down here?"

"Saving your ass, old timer," a boy's voice replies - scratchy but just a touch of depth to it, a few years above your own. The way he moves through the air, it's almost like he's...impermeable. Domino's cloud of energy seems repulsed by his presence. And in your gray sight, he's...solid. All the way through. "I'll be switching in for Mister Griffith here," the boy - Lonnie - declares boldly.

"Lonnie, does your father know you're here?!" Griffith asks frantically. "Does your mother - ?"

"You're in my seat, Griff." Lonnie replies sharply. "And if you're really concerned about what he knows, you should've said something before you got chumped into putting up Pop's to get out of your debts."

"You weren't invited to this game," the dealer protests. Several of the other men in the room...they feel anxious. And have hands on their guns.

"I invited myself." Lonnie replies coolly, glancing your way. "Looks like someone else did, too. So I think you can accept another walk-in. Unless you think Harlem's not gonna mind if you turn me away so you can finish snatching up its neutral ground in peace."

"...fine. Take your seat." "Thanks," Lonnie sits down and is dealt in, whistling. "A fourteen..."

Wait, what? Rich barely keeps herself from saying as the new arrival bursts in, starting and turning her head to face them. Her blind eyes widen at the way he looks in her sight. So solid. And what it does to the energy as he walks in... Someone else different. Someone unusual, she thinks, staring at him. ...I am getting awfully glad I decided to come to Chinatown.

"...Hi, there," Rich speaks up to the new arrival cautiously as he sits down. "Lonnie, right? I can see you and these... fine people..." she lets some irony bleed into those words as she says them- "Know each other." She pauses. "I won't argue with you helping out, uh, a friend... but- are you sure you're going to do okay with all this?" she adds, lowering her voice.

"It's cards, buddy. Nothing's sure. It's all about luck," Lonnie extends a hand. "Didn't catch your name."

Dex is tapping his fingers, unnoticed by most of the room now that Lonnie has stolen the spotlight.

"...I suppose that's true," Rich says, trying to look innocent of any making her own luck going on in secret. She reaches out a hand herself and then gets a deer-in-headlights look at the question. Uh. Crap. Do I say my real name? Nnno, I shouldn't, even if it's just my first name I shouldn't- do I say a girl's name? One of the ones I was picking out... no, that would be even more suspicious...

"Richie," she says hesitantly after a second, shaking his hand. "Nice to meet you. This, uh, isn't really my usual kind of place." She's not sure why she's trying to defend herself about that, all of a sudden.

"S'all good," Lonnie laughs. "It's not mine, either. I've actually never played before." "Wait, what-?" Griffith sputters. He goes quiet suddenly as Lonnie turns to face him. Lonnie turns back to you. "Just looking to have an exciting Christmas, then? I feel ya."

"Well," Lonnie sounds like he's smiling. "Best of luck to us both. Let's play." Lonnie hits and gets twenty-two. "Aw, nuts. Can I get a reshuffle?"

"...After you've hit?" the dealer asks incredulously.

Lonnie shrugs. "Won't change my results. But maybe this one here'll have better luck." The dealer reshuffles...and now it's your turn.

"Something like that, yes," Rich replies to the question with a small smile. She can feel herself warming to the boy, though she is still feeling distracted by the situation with Domino, not to mention all the people around with hands on guns... Somehow, though, she isn't nearly as worried about that as she probably should be. This is interesting, and Rich is having fun again. "Best of luck," she agrees warmly.

"...Hmm." She looks at Lonnie curiously at that request, then over to Domino. Maybe I should have asked for that sooner. But... would it have made a difference before he came? I don't know what exactly his... deal is. "I'm ready," she tells the dealer, trying to concentrate on the game again.

"Hit or stay?" he asks. Dex comes back to you, and his hand is on his gun as he keeps himself on an angle between you and Lonnie. "She got the message. Didn't give any cues but she looks scared. I think we should bail, kid. This room just got five times too hot for comfort. That's Luke Cage's son. And Cage is your dad's biggest competitor. There's no way he doesn't know who you are."

As the dealer waits for you to make your choice, you notice...the energy around the cards is being pushed away. Where Lonnie is sitting, he is as close to the dealer as Domino is...as if his presence is disrupting her ability somehow. You currently have a nine!

Rich opens her mouth to respond to the dealer before Dex comes back over, and she stiffens at what he now has to say. Oh. Oh, damn... She can feel the pit fall out of her stomach. My father's competitor? Lonnie didn't act like he knew who I am, but- She swallows. I guess I wouldn't have been able to read him if he did. Oh, boy. "...I didn't know," is all she says to Dex to start, a lump in her throat. She looks between Lonnie and Domino now, very antsy and uncertain of what to do. This was suddenly much more complicated, and all kinds of people in the room were waiting on her right now. But.

"I just want to play this out," she says to Dex quietly. "I... can pay you back, if I end up losing the money. But I- I don't want to leave her, after. If we can manage that." "Hit," she says warily, turning back to the dealer tensely.

Dex clenches his teeth, the sound of grinding enamel almost painful to your sensitive ears. He keeps a hand on your shoulder, a gesture that could be interpreted as reassuring or preparatory. You hit...and get an ace! Domino stays, despite having a lower hand than yours, and her handler hits...and gets a twenty-four! She hisses, dissatisfied, and Domino shifts in her seat.

Lonnie whistles. “Nice move. Pop’s might have a new owner after this, after all.” You go through several more rounds...and it becomes clear that you and Lonnie are beginning to pull ahead of your two competitors. Domino’s aura is steadily shrinking - and her legs are trembling unseen under the table. Abruptly, her handler rises and declares her exit from the table. “Looks like it’s just us kids, now.” The son of Luke Cage remarks cheerily. “Damn, this is turning into a real Christmas story. I’m liking this energy. What about you, Richie? You feeling in the Christmas spirit today?”

"...I suppose, yeah," Rich says, though she's having decidedly less fun with the game now that the stakes have gone up so much, and some of that could certainly show through in her voice. "What's the, um, deal with you and this 'Pop's', by the way? It seems like you- both of you-" she adds with a glance towards Domino, trying to look sympathetic. Sorry... I don't know what to do at this point. "Have your own reasons for being here. ...I doubt they expected this to turn out between three kids. It sounded like you really wanted to - get it back? Keep it safe?" she asks, 'looking' towards Lonnie again. "Something in-between?"

"Oh?" Lonnie is probably raising an eyebrow. "You don't know? Oh boy. Pop's is...it's a piece of Harlem history, let's call it. And this friend of my father's, here...made some bad decisions, let's say, and now it's up for grabs. I'm here to keep that from happening. Gotta protect your roots, you know?"

Lonnie pauses. "Hey, Domino. How're you feeling 'bout all this? Me and Richie here are having a good day, today. But you seem a little down."

"...What?" Domino replies, unconvincingly. "I don't know what you're t-talking about."

"You sure?" Lonnie asks very seriously, and his cheerful attitude...slips a little. "It's Christmas. Every kid should have a good day on Christmas."

"I...uh..." Domino swallows. She's looking at you now. "I do." She says.

"...you do?" Lonnie asks, confused. He looks at you. "You two getting married or something?" He asks jovially.

"I didn't get involved to try and steal anyone's property," Rich defends herself with a frown at Lonnie's surprise that she doesn't know. ...Money, yes, I'll cop to that, but not property. "But I can... well, I understand why you would want to do that." She quiets as the two opponents left start to converse among themselves, grimacing at the direction the conversation goes, but stiffening as Domino speaks up to her. "...Got it," Rich says, laser-focused on Domino now that she's said that. She doesn't dislike Lonnie, but Domino is asking for help. She'd already decided to take a stand about that, and she's not about to let the girl down now if she can help it.

"...Dex, I think now would be a good time to go," she says, standing up from the table and moving away from Lonnie, and behind her bodyguard.

Dex immediately draws his gun...and the four Chinatown men draw theirs...and Domino's handler draws hers....and Lonnie's two men draw theirs.... Domino sits, frozen, at her seat, as the stand-off commences.

Lonnie sits...relaxed. Quietly confident. He smacks his lips and makes a bemused noise. "Um. Okay. I don't know about y'all but I'm feeling like there was a failure to communicate somewhere."

"Any of you squint-eyed fucks make a twitch, I'm gonna paint this room with one bullet and all of your brains." Dex declares ever-so-softly. "That goes for you, too, north-side."

"...Dex, what should I do?" Rich whispers to him, heart in her throat now that there are a very large number of guns being pointed around the room. She is very much not relaxed, not least of which because she can't remember seeing Dex like this before and it is kind of terrifying. "Lonnie, I'm sorry, but I..." She has no idea if what she's going to say might help the situation or make it exponentially worse, but since she feels like one of the only people in the room not eager to start shooting right about now... "I'd really like to go, now. I'm... fine forfeiting my stake and leaving Pop's to you. I don't want anyone to die here, really."

"Hey, man, that's cool with me." Lonnie sounds very confused. "I don't know why everyone's pointing guns, suddenly, is all. Could you help me out a bit?"

"Stay calm, kid." Dex says neutrally, focused on his task. "I'll get us out of this."

"...please help me!" Domino blurts out suddenly, sounding on the verge of tears. "They made me cheat! It's not my fault! I don't wanna die!"

"Shut up, you - !" Her handler snarls.

Lonnie says: "...huh."

"I... I want to explain, but-" Rich swallows as Domino blurts that out, mouth feeling dry. Oh, god. Desperate now, she opens her mouth briefly, a word on her tongue to give Dex as an order- handler- but she stops short with a wince. If any bullets start flying at all, this room would suddenly become a very bad place for a blind girl. Something else. I need to try something else...

"W-We're taking Domino with us," Rich says, with as much strength in her voice as she can muster. "Anyone who objects to that, you heard what my bodyguard said. Take it up with him if you want, but it's up to you what... matters more to you. Her, or... your lives."

"Um." Lonnie raises a hand. "I object."

"I forfeit!" Domino squeals.

Lonnie drops his hand. "I no longer object."

"...Oh, thank god," Rich breathes, before speaking up louder. "There! You win. Game's over, Pop's is yours, everyone's happy!" she says, voice very strained. "Anyone else- I really do not recommend that you object. Or. You heard the man. Brains. Paint."

“..." She swallows. "...Domino, how about you come over here now, okay?"

The girl immediately gets up and tries to shuffle over...and you see the silhouette of her handler reach out and grab her, wrapping an arm around her neck and putting the gun to her head. "Where the hell do you think you're going, you little whore?!" She looks around at you, at Dex, at Lonnie and his men. "Fine. You can have the fucking shop. But this bitch isn't going anywhere with you people." The handler hisses in Domino's ear. "You just fucked up, girl."

Dex...isn't firing his gun. You know he could've taken the shot. But if it's a choice between leaving Domino behind and letting you both get away scot-free, or starting a shoot-out...

Lonnie exhales softly. "Hey, Richie. Quick question."

Rich's blind eyes go very wide at that. Oh, no. Nonononono. Rich had just been starting to think everything would turn out all right, but then that had to happen, and now they're all stuck... And now she's actually in worse danger than before. And Dex isn't doing anything because of what I ordered him to do. What do I do now...?! "..." She hesitates at the sigh from the third party here. "Yes, Lonnie?" she squeaks out.

"...do you and Domino wanna go hang-out someplace after this?" He asks gently. "I mean, it's okay if you say no, I'm just saying I feel like we're all really bonding here today."

"..." Rich's mouth feels very dry, but she forces it to form words regardless. "Sure. If we can. Arrange for that to happen. Yeah."

"Baller." Lonnie beams. He rises slowly from his seat, facing Domino and her hostage-taker. Smoothly, his men - minus Griffin, who is cowering - rotate to face away from Dex...and toward the Chinamen squad. "It's gonna be okay," he whispers reassuringly to the trembling girl. "We're all gonna go get some hot chocolate after this, listen to some smooth jazz...you like jazz?"

"Y...yeah. I mean, I don't know.”

[Lonnie chuckles.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chOtemRAYNc) "No worries. We're gonna find out. Just stay cool, okay."

"O...okay..."

Domino's handler cocks her pistol. "Last chance. Walk away. Or she dies."

Lonnie scoffs. "Hey, south-side boy. You think you can waste all these fools without that girl there getting a scratch?"

"Easy," Dex replies without hesitation.

"Well, then I got one thing to say to that."

Lonnie taps out a few drums on the table. Long, long, short. Long, long, long.

The room explodes into a cacophony of deafening gunfire. For all of two seconds, the world is nothing but explosions. You are wrapped beneath a heavy weight of solid matter that is impenetrable to your sightless-yet-sighted eyes.

And above you, his weight pressing you to the floor, Lonnie says: "This is turning out to be one hell of a Christmas."

Bodies drop to the floor. Distantly, you hear Domino crying tears of relief. Lonnie's men drop their unfired pistols, while Dex lowers his own - still smoking. You're the only ones left standing.

Rich tries to respond in words, but her body's still catching up to the fact that it's not dead after that cacophony of gunfire and Lonnie's weight atop her was also extremely unexpected. So the only thing that comes out of her mouth is a high-pitched, almost hysterical laugh. It dies away after a few seconds, and she takes a couple shaky, shuddering breaths. "Can I... get up now? Please?" she asks faintly, heart beating in her chest far faster than she thinks it's supposed to.

"Huh?" Lonnie replies distractedly. "Oh. Yeah. It's just, uh..." he coughs. "You've got neat eyes. Yeah, getting up now." He withdraws, his heavy hand climbing over your own to tug you to your feet. Domino is crying in the corner, still standing frozen in place. The older boy walks over to her gently and pulls her into a hug. "Ssshhh...it's all okay now. You're safe. Just think about jazz, okay?”

"I...still don't know what jazz is," Domino chokes between her tears, half-hysterical, half-laughing.

"Imagine jazz."

Lonnie turns to you. "So, about that hang out..."

*******

True to his word, Lonnie Cage-Jones knew just where to go to enjoy some relaxing Christmas jazz after a bloody shootout - and despite your bodyguard's vocal protestations, you had agreed to come along with a terribly grateful Domino in tow as well as Lonnie's bodyguards. Griffith, very much done with the day's festivities, returned to Harlem with a promise to keep quiet on the precise details of what had happened, on the insistence of Harlem's scion. The club, located in Greenwich relatively close to the Tower you called home, was clean in the air and surfaces. Smells of warm mocha, cool, brisk ice cream, smooth leather seats. Lonnie secured the half-dozen of you a private VIP lounge and proceeded to help himself, ordering various confections and smooth non-alcoholic beverages for himself and each of his "guests."

"Heya, guys, maybe go talk a walk now, yeah?" Lonnie waved off his guards, who you could sense throwing a look at Dex suspiciously as your own guard sipped at a cherry sundae and tried to pretend like it didn't taste good. Domino was scarfing down a slice of pumpkin pie, and on a plate in-front of you was a gigantic chocolate strudel. You could smell the toasty crust and velvety milk chocolate...

Noticing their reluctance, Lonnie coughs. "Yo, Richie. Would you mind sending your guy out for a few? Think my guys would feel better. Even though I am kind of bulletproof and really they shouldn't worry."

Dex abruptly stops drinking his sundae.

Rich can feel her mouth watering from the moment all their foods arrive, the scents wafting up towards her building anticipation very effectively. She's just about to dig into the strudel, a forkful of it halfway to her mouth, when she hears Lonnie say her name and lowers it with a significant twinge of disappointment. "Oh, right-" She also pauses suddenly at that casual announcement.

...Well. So Dex really couldn't do a whole lot to hurt him. At least if he isn't lying... "...Dex, if he wanted to hurt me- either of them did- they easily could have back at the card game," Rich says carefully after a second. "So... do you think you could step outside? If something does go wrong, I'll just scream and you can burst in to save me."

"...No." Dex replies flatly.

"Oooooooh," Lonnie murmurs softly, vaguely interested. "You gonna take that, Richie?"

Rich feels a slight chill at that response from Dex. Not that she didn't expect him to object, but a flat refusal was... not what she'd been hoping for. "Why not, Dex?" she asks, deigning not to respond to Lonnie for now. She has a feeling it wouldn't really help the situation. "What are you expecting to happen, if you do?"

Dex takes a slow, long drink from his sundae. "I'm your bodyguard. I monitor for threats. And this kid," you imagine he's pointing at Lonnie. "Is a walking disaster.

Lonnie sounds like he's shrugging in a sort of 'okay, yeah, maybe.' sort of way.

"...Well." Rich frowns. "Okay, yes, probably a potential threat, but..." She quiets, thinking. And maybe it wouldn't be all that smart to let my father's enemy's son be alone with me. Even if he does seem nice. She casts around for a moment. Could I get us some privacy- no, the room doesn't feel big enough for it. So if I do want him to step outside...

"I think I'd be okay," she says after a second. "I've been taking... lessons, remember?" And she remembers that he doesn't have much of a clue what Elektra has actually been teaching her. Hopefully, nobody else in the room should either. "I'd be able to defend myself, if something goes wrong. At least for a minute or two." Okay, and that part is a total lie, but maybe she can sell it to him? She's hoping.

"..." The glass in Dex's hands makes a small noise as a micro-crack threatens to open under pressure, just audible to your ears. You don't think Dex likes hearing about Elektra - another threat he's been asked not to monitor - very much.

"Hey, man, if I can say something here - "

"You can't." Dex interrupts coldly.

Lonnie ignores him. "Right now, we're totally closer to your territory than we are mine. So if your boss caught wind that I, uh, had ideas about messing with his kid, I think you can admit my odds aren't good that I make it back safe to Harlem before he breaks out a car door on my - "

"Shut up," Dex hisses abruptly. "Fine. You have three minutes. Then we are leaving."

And with that last, seething proclamation, you find yourselves alone. Domino looks around between the two of you nervously as Lonnie sighs, leaning back into his cushioned seat. "Well, that was...weird."

Rich starts feeling antsy as she hears the pressure on Dex's glass now, but at least he's not outright telling her no anymore. She gets a weird feeling as Lonnie speaks up, however. A car door? Rich thinks with a blink, giving a blank look in Lonnie's general direction. Am I missing something here? I feel like I am... But, well, it seems whatever he's said managed to convince Dex, for what that was worth.

"Dex is... protective," Rich says noncommittally. "And he's been through kind of a lot today." Like killing half a dozen people. The thought comes back to her, and her stomach turns. Suddenly she doesn't feel as much like enjoying the strudel. ...Maybe I can box it up to take home. "So, uh, what did you want to talk about in private, Lonnie?" she says. "And. Quickly, I think. -Are you doing okay, Domino, by the way?"

"...yeah," the girl whispers, devoid of the icy disdain she'd been made to affect back at the card table. Now her words come low, fatigued, and with a hint of an accent - Queens, maybe? "My name...um. My name is Neena. With two 'e's."

"Aw, I was kind of hoping Domino was your real name," Lonnie admits, seeming embarrassed. "I need to figure out a cool codename."

"Neena. That's a nice name." Rich smiles in her direction, before frowning slightly at Lonnie's comment. Codenames... That's reminding her... uncomfortably of vigilantes. Like the Punisher. But Lonnie doesn't seem like a bad person. He wouldn't shoot up a church to try to kill her dad. Even if he did sign off on shooting those guys, back there... "I'd feel kind of bad for anyone whose parents actually named them Domino," Rich says with a slightly forced smile after probably too long of a pause. "Have any ideas for one in mind, Lonnie?" she asks, before frowning. "...Actually, uh, maybe that's not the best thing to ask right now. We don't have a lot of time, and I... get the feeling we might not be able to meet like this again, any time soon."

"I mean I was thinking maybe - oh yeah okay no that's fine too." Lonnie immediately changes track while Neena quietly takes your compliment. "You're right. This is totally a Capulets and Montagues thing we got going on here. Which is why I wanted our shadows to go for a walk! They'll probably never let us see each other again until we're in our thirties and trained in the family legacy of hating each other."

"Are you... saying we're going to be Romeo and Juliet?" Rich asks, a smile pulling at the corners of her lips now.

"...which it sounds like your dad's got going on for you? You some kind of secret assassin? Oh! Don't tell me! You're totally not blind and you've been faking it for years to surprise would-be attackers!"

He stops talking, suddenly very quiet at your reply. Domino - Neena - giggles softly.

"Um."

"I mean."

"SO HEY NEENA do you like jazz?"

"It's...very smooth." She replies between snickers.

Rich tries to hold in her own laugh in response to that, finding herself at least somewhat more successful at it. "Oh, so you're not completely un-flusterable. That's good to know," she says with a grin. I wonder how old he is. A couple years older, at least... He said I had neat eyes. "I haven't been faking being blind," she says more seriously as she has that thought. Let's not confirm or deny the secret assassin thing. That sounds kind of cool and I wouldn't mind if he actually thought it of me.

"And I'm... not really interested in hating each other's families, either. Though it sounds like you might not have the best view of my dad," she says carefully. What exactly does he know? Is there something I don't know? He was talking about 'territory'... "Also, Neena- do you have anywhere for you to go, after this?"

"..." Neena's silence is talkative.

"...I was afraid of that," Rich murmurs.

"If we're adopting people, I already called dibs." Lonnie speaks up. "Besides, she likes jazz. I feel like that's a pretty strong bond right there."

"You did not call dibs,” Rich says crossly. "And I- I wasn't thinking of adopting... well, okay, maybe..." she mutters, rubbing her forehead. "What would you want to do, though, Neena? You've got- well, a lot more choice now, it seems like." Not unlike how Rich had felt on the trip to Chinatown, earlier today.

And just look how that ended up turning out...

"Sure I did," Lonnie grumps back.

"...I don't want to go with you," Neena whispers to you, sounding scared. "Not that I don't want...I mean I really - thank you for saving me!"

"Hey, it's cool..." Lonnie interjects soothingly. "We're all friends here. I'm sure Richie understands."

"I just...you know. Your family is..." Neena seems afraid to finish her words. "And you seem nice but your bodyguard is scary and - "

Her voice trembles. "I don't want to go back to where I started."

"...Yeah, it's okay," Rich says with a nod, though she can't keep some disappointment out of her voice. "I understand." I think. Though as Neena keeps talking, she starts to feel increasingly doubtful of just that. What does she think of my family? "...Dex was pretty scary today, wasn't he," she adds more softly with a furrowed brow, still not knowing what to make of witnessing him like that.

"...Wait-" She starts. "You think I- or my family- we'd just use you like those people were? We wouldn't do that!" ...Right?

"I know! I'm sorry!" Neena replies hastily and unconvincingly. "Please don't be mad, I didn't mean to - "

"...He doesn't know," Lonnie exhales with a wondering sort of awe. "You don't know, do you Richie?" He sounds almost...worried. "Oh, damn it. I'm sorry, man. I didn't know you were...out of the loop."

"..." Rich grits her teeth. She has been increasingly getting the feeling today that there was something that she doesn't know about, but hearing it just laid out like that by Lonnie- having him realize before she understands- makes her feel sore. "...I'm not mad, Neena," she says, exhaling. I guess there's no point trying to deny it now. "What- what exactly is it both of you know about... us... that I don't know?"

Lonnie opens his mouth - you can smell the food on his breath - but closes it, respectfully.

Neena is shaking. "You...you're both..." she swallows, breathing deeply. "Your dads are...gangsters. Aren't they?"

Lonnie nods slowly. Then pauses. "I just nodded. So you know."

"L-Lonnie's dad runs Harlem. Luke Cage. And his mom - "

"She's...not involved." Lonnie finishes for her. "But yeah. My dad's in charge of Harlem's Paradise. Watches over the neighborhood, keeps other crews out. Gets up to some shady business, sure, but nothing like your old man. Sorry."

"And...your dad," Neena pauses. You can hear her hand trailing up the table to take your own. "I just know people call him the Kingpin.”

[Rich feels a chill](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZngbIlNKpQ) followed by a visceral feeling of denial as Neena says the word 'gangsters', wanting to shout that she has that wrong, that it's not true. But she keeps her mouth tightly shut as Neena continues speaking, the pieces starting to fall into place around her, leaving her boxed in, and trapped. She flinches and pulls her hand away from Neena's as it touches hers, shaking her head. "The 'Kingpin'?" Rich repeats, disbelievingly. "I don't know what you're talking about. My father isn't... he's not... rrrgh!" She presses both hands to her forehead, hissing breaths through clenched teeth.

Neena's seat screeches as she leans back away from you, fearful of how you taking this unexpected news will blow back on her.

Lonnie leans forward, calm as a stone amid the shore. "Let me guess..." he begins softly, with the rich notes of deep and dark in his voice that you know will someday blossom into a baritone to rival your father's. Perhaps that was the voice of crime and vice, passed down in the blood. Perhaps it would be your voice. "You were raised thinking that your family came into its money the way every other rich family says they did. Hard work. Some lucky stumbles. A vision and a force of will that few people possess. You've got locks on all your doors, you can't go anywhere unaccompanied, probably home-schooled your whole life. And maybe you thought it was because you're blind and because hey, some people are jealous of success, right? Like that guy, what was his name? The..."

He pauses. "The Punisher? Guy known for targeting white-collar businessmen, right? Then again, maybe he was branching out after that smear campaign that Daredevil and the government put on your dad. Daredevil...another guy known for breaking the faces of bad guys. Russian human trafficking, random muggings...somebody put him up to going after your old man, right? But the truth...well. Nobody gets that rich and powerful with clean hands. And nobody makes enemies like the Punisher and Daredevil by being an upstanding businessman. You knew that, didn't you? Deep down."

"Don't... pretend... that you understand me," Rich says quietly, feeling anger starting to simmer up inside her as Lonnie starts to speak, saying those things mockingly about her, about her family. The worst part is that he's right, that he's actually able to guess what her life was like. That he knows enough to get all this so quickly, when she's been kept in the dark her whole life... "And don't tell me what you think I know!" she hisses, hating all of this, hating how much sense it all makes as he lays it out. I never thought about it. I never- never wanted to think about it. I know there were things here and there that could have been suspicious, but how was I supposed to think my father's a bad person? How was I supposed to know that he was... like this...

"The Punisher was just... a deranged maniac," she says, breathing hard, unsteadily now. "A murderer, he killed innocent people, you can't use that as evidence my father was- my father is..." Her voice breaks off into a growl. "And Daredevil was a criminal too, right?!" she insists. "And, and even if he's not a, an 'upstanding businessman', there's a whole hell of a difference between that and being a gangster!..." She doesn't want to believe this. She doesn't want to believe any of this. But she knows, she can realize how she's grasping at straws at this point. And she's furious about it.

"Okay." Lonnie replies neutrally. "You should ask your dad, then. And if you're really certain, ask your bodyguard. Tell him what Neena just said about his employer and your dad. Ask him about car doors."

"No! Please - " Neena begins to hyperventilate.

And at that moment, Dex walks back into the longue. Sweeping his head over the scene before him, his fingers twitch and he monotones. "Time's up. Say goodbye, Richard."

Lonnie's watching you expectantly. Neena grows quiet. Terrified what you might say.

"..." Rich says nothing for what feels like a long, long moment, anger and frustration boiling inside her, but swiftly mixing with and being overtaken by what feels like... fear. She really doesn't want this to be true. But if it is- if that's something Dex and her father and who knows who else have been hiding from her- then she can't risk actually asking any of those things. Or the consequences that Neena might face...

She takes a deep breath, and lets it out. Trying to gather herself. Trying to be meditative, or as close to it as she can possibly manage under these circumstances. "...Goodbye, Lonnie. Domino," she says after a second, standing up, voice slightly calmer now. "...Thanks for the desserts," she adds with a regretful smile. "And- for the jazz. It was nice meeting both of you. Even with... everything." And that was true- it was, it only had been awful too. She wonders if that's why it hurts so much, right now.

Without saying anything else, she turns away from them, and walks with Dex out the door.

The drive back is longer, somehow, than the one you'd taken out into Chinatown. Dex is shifting anxiously in his seat, gripping the wheel tightly. "So, about today..." he coughs a little. "I think it would be a good idea to keep this to ourselves. What do you think?"

"...I think so too," Rich says after a second, letting out a long, tired sigh. She has a lot of things she wants to ask Dex now- bubbling up to the surface, not leaving her alone. And she could probably squeeze some answers out of him if she cared to, but... she's so drained, now. "How about we just say- we went out for Chinese food- and that's it?"

"...Hehehe." Dex snickers. "Hehe...hahahaha! That's...yeah. Chinese food, I like that." He's probably grinning. "Merry Christmas, Richie."

"...Merry Christmas, Dex." She puts on a smile- just a mask of one. It had started out well enough, shockingly so. But right now, this Christmas feels anything but.

*******

It's the New Year. And you're back in the dojo with Elektra, going through your practice katas to warm you up and 'unblock your energies' as she describes it. She also describes those katas as probably being a load of horseshit, but apparently you look tense and she wants you warmed up for...whatever the day's activities are going to be.

"So!" She chirps in that accented Greek of hers. "How was your holiday? And don't think I've forgotten about that promise you made me. Today's a big day for you. New Year...and a new you."

"Christmas was... interesting," Rich answers after a second, pretending to focus on the katas, 'horseshit' or not. "My father- we had a talk, and he agreed to let me be less... well, secluded- from now on." That probably qualified for interesting enough on its own, without getting into everything else that was much messier and had happened that day. She sighs at the latter comment from Elektra, stomach churning. Here it comes. "I didn't forget," she mutters. "About that, or the promise I got you to make me in return."

"Quid pro quo," Elektra echoes her own words on your method of obtaining collateral. "Funny, though. You had a talk with your dad, exchanged actual conversation, and got something you wanted out of it. Most kids would be dancing right now...I think." She shrugs. "I don't know. I would be, anyway. So why the sad face?"

The corners of Rich's lips twitch up at her comment. "You're a real expert on most kids, aren't you," she mutters, before the faint smile fades. "Just... some less dance-worthy things that happened over the holiday, I guess," she says, sighing. Not much point trying to hide her feelings from Elektra. But I don't need to let her know everything. "The VI is off like always, right? Zeus?" she calls out to the empty room, just to check.

There is no reply - of course, maybe Elektra is wrong and the room is and always has been wired up the ass. It's probably what a criminal mastermind would do if they were your parent.

Rich does not find much comfort in the silence. Especially since she's going to be spilling one or more secrets. But Elektra had been able to get away with things Rich doubts she would have if she wasn't fairly confident, so... "Do you know anything about..." She pauses. Something more innocuous. "Car doors?"

"Nnnnooooooo...?" Elektra replies, bemused in a way you've rarely glimpsed in her. "Developing a taste in automobiles, are we? I should warn you that a lot of the appeal comes in the looks. Though you would appreciate a good engine rumble more than most could..."

"Never mind," Rich says, sighing. She could ask something more direct, now, but... just in case the room was actually wired, she might as well only spill one world-shattering secret for today, and see if there were any consequences to it. The thought of which makes her stomach clench with anxiety, but she's not going to be getting out of their promises now. "Anyway. We were going to get to secrets, weren't we?" she says, teeth clenching briefly as she speaks. "Something... that I've never told anyone else."

She tilts her head at you, long hair waterfalling down the side of her head with the familiar honey-scent. And a touch of something...muskier. Someone's aftershave, lingering against her cheek. "That's right. Would you feel better if I went first?" She asks, uncharacteristically gentle.

"...Yes, actually." And I swear, if this is the setup for you shoving me to the ground and shouting 'too bad!' or anything like that... Rich sighs softly, trying to banish that thought. "If you wouldn't mind."

"I'm not really Elektra Natchios." She declares, as casual as if she were admitting she had bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning.

"...What?" Rich asks faintly, not sure she heard that right at first. "What?!" she repeats, stumbling back away from her. "You're not- then who the hell- just who are you?!"

"Elektra Natchios," she sits up slowly, the mat pressing softly further down beneath her weight. "Except not really. Except completely. It's...hard to explain. Even I don't really understand it."

Her footsteps approach you, moving closer for each one you take back in response. Maintaining the distance. "I was born in a coffin of blood drained from children filled with drugs made from techniques older than the city of New York. Elektra Natchios was born from the womb of a mother who took one look at her, screamed, and gave her up to a blind man who promised to cure the devil inside her. He lied, though. He didn't want to cure the devil. He wanted to tame it. He's dead now, because he failed."

Rich is increasingly leaving shaky and approaching being outright terrified, as Elektra(?) follows her back, at the words that she's saying, that don't make any earthly sense. "So," she says faintly, backing up until she hits the wall with a thud. "I don't... I don't understand, but- what do you want from me, if you're- whatever you are?"

"To fulfill my contract and leave you tougher than when I found you. Like I said when we met," Elektra scoffs, pausing three paces from you. "Are you afraid of me now? Why? You wanted to know something about me that nobody else knows, didn't you? So that you would feel safe when you returned the favor."

She sighs. "You know, I was expecting a little less judgement from someone who's also pretending to be someone else."

I'm not going to feel any safer now that I know that much, Rich thinks, before Elektra says that last and the pit drops out of the bottom of her stomach. "What-" she breathes, eyes wide. "Then you- do you know? I'm not- I'm not judging you, I just don't understand... I..."

She swallows, takes a deep breath, tries to center herself. She'd said that she doesn't want to hurt Rich. She has to try and believe that, no matter what else she had just admitted. "I see your point," she mutters, hesitantly. "...So does it even count if I tell you that secret, now?" she whispers. "I've still- never actually told anyone it."

Elektra shrugs. "It's not about whether I know. It's about saying something you've never admitted to anyone. Something...you're afraid nobody can hear without being afraid of you."

"Okay." Rich nods slowly. In a way, maybe it makes this... easier. She doesn't need to worry about how Elektra is going to take it. The latter words she says ring all too true in her ears. The fact that she might have known all along is another entirely different kind of terrifying, but, nothing to be done about that now. "I... well. I am still, technically, Richard Fisk," she says- quiet, hesitant. "But... not really. It's not the name I would have picked... not the one that I go by, whenever I can."

"I'm... a girl."

Elektra nods, knowing you can perceive it. "Pleasure to meet you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terribly sorry for butchering the rules of blackjack. It's been quite some time since I played, and being totally faithful wasn't that necessary for the story. This concludes the "prologue" of our campaign - and begins Rich's journey to becoming the next Daredevil.


	3. Let the Old Dreams Die (Part I)

[Winter. Two weeks before Christmas.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmVzeriU5m0) It's a time you're familiar with. A time of cold and snow, of wind and chiming bells. A time for choruses and coffee and resolutions.

A time for you to get the holy hell kicked out of you - it's your final physical exam. After three years of training...three years of meditation and katas and scraps of philosophy and cheap but sometimes delicious food...it's all come to an end.

You are Rich Fisk - age fifteen.

She is Elektra Natchios - age "don't ask."

This is your last hour together as student and teacher. And she's gonna make you bleed for it.

_"Dodge!"_ She barks, flinging a pair of blunted shuriken your way, their metal whistling through the air in parallel right for your face. In her off-hand, lazily gripped between gloved fingers, is a _Kyoketsu-shoge_ \- a hook-knife on a chain, ready to be deployed against you the moment an opportunity presents. It's time to prove you were worth her time. Or she might kill you.

"_Hah_!" Rich shouts out, ducking away from the shuriken and feeling them spinning over her head as she evades, rising back up with a huff and focusing on her teacher. A bead of sweat rolls down her face- however hard she's trained, this is _Elektra_. The final fight with her, no holding back between them. But if she wasn't ready to face Elektra now, then this would all have been for nothing. Her teacher might know all her strengths, but she knew them, as well... Taking a breath, she bends her knees and leaps at Elektra, mindful of the hook-knife as she launches a kick at her teacher's chest.

Your heel meets Elektra's solar plexus with a sharp thud, provoking a grunt as air expels itself between your instructor's teeth. But instead of dropping to her knees, she smoothly retreats back some distance and flicks out her _Kyoketsu-shoge's_ chain in an attempt to snare your ankle and drag you to the floor. You anticipate the move and successfully dodge, while she drags the length of metal back into her hands.

"Good. Your reflexes have improved. Certainly better than the little pushover I met that first day." She begins idly twirling her weapon, the blade hissing as it tracks a circle through the air. A light, playful scoff. "You still hit like a woman, though."

"_Thank_ you," Rich says pointedly, a grin in her voice, even as her eyes narrow. "So do _you_." She takes a stance, eyes set, and lunges at her with more force behind the blow this time, stepping into Elektra's guard and throwing a right cross at her face.

You can see the hint of her silhouette as it leans back in your storm-cloud version of sight and lets the breeze of your punch caress her nose. You also get a glimpse of an oncoming kick aimed for your stomach.

Rich sidesteps the blow easily, feeling the kick brush past her side, and throws a spin-kick at Elektra's shins to counter, still forcefully but a bit more carefully aimed this time.

Your kick slams into Elektra's shins...and you almost hurt _yourself_ when it feels like you just kicked bone made of titanium. "Oooh. I _felt_ that one," she teases you. "Here, allow me to return the favor." And she does - with an open palmed strike to your stomach that comes faster than you can react to, the impact reverberating through your body. You _feel_ the impact. Pain? Not quite so much.

_Ow. **Ow.**_ Rich thinks to herself, wincing and trying to avoid limping in response. Still off-balance from the blow, she can't manage to dodge this next hit, but in-between clenching her stomach muscles and rolling with the punch... "Heh," she breathes, grinning as she shakes it off. _That all you got?_ she barely has the sense to keep from saying aloud. "My- _turn_." She throws an uppercut at Elektra's chin, as hard as she can now.

Your knuckles _crack_ against the underside of her chin, her head snapping back as her jaw clicks shut, almost chomping down on her own tongue. Elektra pauses... Then her head snaps _forward,_ smashing against your nose hard enough that you immediately feel a rupture and the warm trickle of blood rolling down toward your lips.

Pain lances through Rich, centered on the breakage in her nose, at that impact. **_Fuck_**_,_ she thinks, reeling back. _How goddamn hard **is** your body, Elektra?_ Jumping back out of range and taking a slightly labored breath as she tries to recover, she grits her teeth, and draws a pair of sai from her sleeves, holding them in each hand. "If _you're_ going to use weapons..." she mutters, before lunging forward with a strong stab.

"By all means," she laughs - until your sai come racing for her belly and suddenly her energy changes. With a lightning-fast swipe of her hand, she _bats aside_ your perfectly deadly weaponry and examines her palm curiously. You smell no blood...not even a drop was shed. The universe, evidently, felt it appropriate to give an answer to your unspoken question. "I've had enough of being run through with my own weapons, thanks..." she mutters absently, fingers flexing. "Second to last test..."

Elektra pauses, then sheathes her _Kyoketsu-shoge_ and takes a seat on the matt. "Come on. Sit."

_Okay, how the **hell**,_ Rich thinks incredulously as she bats aside the sai, not even scratched. Though the comment afterwards is almost as surprising. _When did I-_ Rich instantly wonders reflexively, before realizing she must have been referring to something else. _Oh._ She frowns, wondering at the story behind that, before lowering her sai slightly as Elektra sheathes her weapon. "...Okay..." she says warily, it coming out a bit stuffy with her bleeding noise, and cautiously takes a seat. Not entirely confident this isn't a trick, but- no, it doesn't seem like one.

"Fix that," your teacher orders with a snap of her fingers, still only half-focused on you. "After three years if you can't fix a damned bloody nose in record time, I might as well break your neck and leave you to figure out how to fix paraplegia. Might convince you to put some passion into your work."

“I was _planning_ on it. Thanks,” Rich mutters a bit irritably, touching her nose before exhaling and centering herself, settling into a meditative trance. As she breathes deeply, she feels her body’s energy channeled in these familiar patterns, starting to rejuvenate her nose.

The flow of blood slows and stops within a minute, and the pain swiftly numbs as ruptured tissues repair themselves and your nerves cease to send their louds and insistent cries outward. You wipe your nose once more and find no new blood to follow it.

"Good work," Elektra nods, hair swishing smoothly and with the same familiar fragrances and energy to each strand as when you first met. Skin just as smooth, bones just as hard yet elegantly mobile. Barely aged a day. "With that kind of focus and sufficient time, you should be able to pull yourself together from just about anything. Not a bad trick to have in your pocket." She tilts her head back, flexing her jaw muscles probingly. "Mmm. And you've got a real bastard of an uppercut for someone barely into her teens. Probably would've broken anyone else's jaw."

Rich nods back, taking a deep breath as she feels herself restored. "Thanks. I do think that it'll come in handy, yeah," she replies, a couple not-unfamiliar idle thoughts running through her head- _what if you went out to try and stop the bad guys-_ but she shakes the thought away. Not the time to get distracted by fantasies. She feels herself smiling at the latter praise, even if the uppercut's actual success was... negligible. "I should have learned your secret to make _yours_ unbreakable," she replies, snickering slightly. _So what's this part of the test?_ she wonders, but by this point, she's sure Elektra will tell her herself, on her own time.

"...Hmmmmm...." Elektra exhales long and loud, fingers tapping against her kneecaps. "This is awkward."

"Oh?" Rich says neutrally, focused on Elektra's silhouette in her clouded vision. "What's so awkward about it?"

"Well, this is usually the part of the training where I..." she waves a hand vaguely. "Heap a great deal of praise on you. Tell you you're my greatest student, that the world lays at your feet, that you're the child I never had but always wanted. 'Course I don't really _say_ that. I just...imply it."

Elektra pauses, taking on the color of mild suspicion in her aura. "You weren't secretly hoping I would say that. Were you?"

"..." Rich feels her cheeks coloring slightly. "No. Definitely not," she says with a straight face, doing her best to sell the lie and act completely uncaring one way or the other.

Elektra...seems convinced! Breathing a sigh of relief, her shoulder muscles loosen a touch. "Good. Because that would be terribly embarrassing for us both," she pauses. "That said, I think you've earned the title of 'well-enough' by my standards. And you are technically my greatest student, by virtue of being my _only_ student. So, you know...two out of three." Elektra hums. "We've got just one last test for you...and then we're done. But first, I want to know what _you_ think you have left to learn. Where do you feel you're at?"

"Agreed," Rich says, relaxing herself as she seems to have sold the lie, but trying not to be too obvious about it. _But come on, Elektra, you could have told me something..._

She tilts her head with a blink as Elektra does continue. The praise this time is rather... backhanded, but- _probably_ well meant? "You have a real knack for stroking my ego, you know," she says dryly, but she feels herself smiling a bit more as she does so.

"Well." Rich exhales, considering that question. "I've learned a lot of combat from you, unarmed and armed, but there's obviously still more that I could learn to properly keep up. I... think I could still be doing _more_ with my chi," she mutters, brow furrowing as she lets on a slight grimace. "But maybe that's just a feeling. It's possible I've hit my limit for it." "I think I've learned about all that I'm _going_ to of meditation," she adds with a slight wince. _At least I hope so._ "But..."

She takes a breath, frowning. "...Probably the biggest thing I see is- being able to function in the real world. I'd like to think I'm nowhere near as- sheltered- as back when I couldn't stand the smell of a pizza parlor," she recalls with a smirk. "But there's definitely still more I should learn about the world out there."

Elektra's lips pull upward. "Good. Then you know what to do when I'm gone. In the end, all this..." her head swivels around your sanctuary of sorts - your battleground, crucible, and safe space all in one. "This has all just been training wheels, really. Getting you ready to ride solo."

"And if I had to guess - which, really, I don't - you have plenty of skinned knees and head injuries to look forward to in your future." Her teeth, carrying a hint of mint on them, are exposed in a smile.

"I... know what I _don't_ know, at least. So that's something," Rich admits with a small smile. "One of the philosophers said it, right? Socrates?" She frowns. "...No, wait, that was 'I know that I know nothing'. ...And I'm pretty sure you called him a hack for it." She shakes her head. "Point is. I'll do my best, once you're gone." Her eyebrows raise at that sly allegation from Elektra afterwards. "Who, me?" Rich does her best to answer innocently. "What do you think I'm going to be doing, exactly? I just want a quiet life, helping out my mother and father."

...Okay, maybe she's not trying _that_ hard to sound innocent.

A dry snort from Elektra. "Sure you do. That's why you take trips to Chinatown to hustle card sharks and rescue helpless young women from servitude. To preserve your quiet life." She leans forward. "Remember our first rule. Honesty. We still have a few minutes left before that rules becomes null-and-void. But until then, I'd like to know...why _did_ you commit so much to this process?" "And..." she flexes a wrist, observing the clinking of her ringlets. "What are you going to do with everything you've been taught here, now, if not break some heads? It's certainly what your father and mother wanted for you - and I think you know that by now."

“…That was an accident,” Rich says with a cough, reddening at the memory. _I never should have mentioned it to her. Though I’m sure she would’ve ended up finding out otherwise._ "I remember," Rich says, more seriously now, frowning slightly at the question that she asks. "...Well." She blows out a breath, thinking back to the nights she'd spent aching and wincing after their grueling training sessions, the times she'd been tempted to throw in the towel, or run to her father to have Elektra fired. But she never had. And as for why... "I... wanted to stop being so helpless," she says quietly. "To be able to solve my problems on my own. Not needing Dex, or you, or my father to do it for me."

Her eyes get harder as she speaks. "And I wanted to be able to push the limits of the things I can do. Even if it was hard. ..._Really_ hard," she admits with a small wince. "I've learned a lot- including how to break some heads. Or other body parts, depending." She exhales. "And I _will_ use that, to protect myself, or any other... helpless, uh- _people_\- that I see fit." "...Once I figure out just _how_ I'm going to do it, at least," she says, sighing. _Honesty._

Elektra stares at you quietly.

"...Hah. Heh-heh-haha!" She starts to laugh, almost fighting against the noises as she raises a hand to her mouth to quiet the sound. "I'm...oh, dear, I'm terribly sorry," she breathes out with all sincerity between slowly dying laughter. "It's just...it _is_ funny. Hilarious, actually."

"But..." the assassin reaches out and swats you lightly on the shoulder. "For once, you can rest assured. It's not at your expense."

Rich bristles somewhat as Elektra starts to laugh, feeling her hackles raise and striving to get the reaction back under control. _Calm down,_ she tells herself, taking a quiet deep breath and banishing the feelings, as best she can. "Is it?" she says evenly as Elektra calls that hilarious, before her eyebrows raise at the last thing Elektra admits. "Oh." That... rather abruptly derails Rich's train of thought, and she's left with some lingering angry feelings she no longer has anything to do with. "Then- why _did_ you find that so hilarious?" she asks, uncertain now. "I'd want to know, before we run out the clock, if you don't mind."

Elektra stops laughing in an instant. "Are you _sure_ about that?" She asks, deadly serious. "Think carefully. And consider this the last chance you have to ask me anything. Is this _really_ something you need to know?"

Rich stills at that question and the tone Elektra asks it in, mouth dry all of a sudden. _Uh. Damn. Is this a good idea?_ "I... probably don't _need_ to," she says cautiously. "...But I still _want_ to know," she says a second later, eyes hardening. "If it's something that could get that strong a reaction out of you, color me curious. And better that than try to frantically come up with something good off the top of my head, and end up fizzling out."

"Hmph," Elektra makes an amused noise, dry as sandpaper. "Good. Make sure to stay in the habit of asking questions you want answered. You want to know what I find funny?" She stands up slowly, looking down at you with an expression your eyes, for all their mystical virtues, will never be able to divine. "Your father asked me to ensure you would never be helpless again. But he would never have asked me to ensure you would _help_ the helpless. That would've been a bad investment."

She strides past you, pausing to put a small hand on your shoulder. "Word of advice? Be careful how open you are about _helping the helpless_ in this city. Or you might see me again someday. Do you understand?"

Rich looks up at Elektra with her half-blind eyes, feeling a chill come over her at the answer her teacher gives. _So. That really is the kind of man he is, then._ "...I think I can see why it would," she admits, very quiet. "I... I think I do," she says after a moment as Elektra walks past, stiffening at that hand on her shoulder- what might otherwise be a friendly gesture, in this context, now feels like a threat. "At least- enough to want to avoid it, that way." "...Still, if I _do_ never see you again," she says, more quietly, "I hope you do well for yourself out there, Elektra." _Whoever you are._

"...You know. The funny thing is, I believe you." Her finger squeeze into your shoulder briefly. "Silly girl."

And just like that, Elektra walks out the door... And is gone from your life.

_Darkness. The scent of smoke and flames. You're amidst the screams and wreckage of the ruin of your family's future...and you are covered in blood._ _Blood that isn't yours._ _Devils chanting in the streets. Angels descending from on high. The skeleton of death leans close and wraps his arms around your waist, leaning in for a kiss..._

_He says: _"..."

You wake up.

[New Year's Eve.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONZvTdROkuI)

A few weeks since Elektra's departure and the smell of her has begun to fade from the familiar halls she walked through. The changes she brought with her have begun to fade, too. Your schedule has become more restrictive, though not yet back to the days when you were only blind. Despite your father's promise to you, you've yet to find yourself within the halls of any public school - though he continues to maintain that...soon...that will change. Arrangements needed to be made. Your mother was the most complimentary of your progress in your efforts. Supposedly, Elektra had shared very sparingly the results of your training, as a condition of her contract. They knew you were no longer entirely blind, as such. They knew you had self-defense training, though no tests had yet been arranged for you against any bodyguards.

Your mother idly suggested, however, that maybe Dex would prove useful comparing your new abilities to a skilled fighter. Particularly given his growing age. Dex...hadn't said anything to that. But you could sense the touch of anger in him, there. And perhaps another emotion. But moreover, he didn't protest the possibility of going a round with you. He's been distant since Chinatown. More distant, still, as your time with Elektra grew to outstrip your time with him. Your father sent him from the Tower more on assignments he refused to speak of and he came back smelling of blood.

The city itself seemed abuzz - with news of more activity of the vigilante-inspired gang, the _Guardian Devils,_ spreading terror and chaos through the Kitchen. The new thorn in the side of New York's Most Excellent Family and their allies.

Tonight, in a show of force and prestige, you were to be with your family once more for the ceremony of celebrating the New Year. To show a strong face against the weak intimidation tactics of "cowards and criminals" as your father referred to them in his lessening public appearances. But until then...you have a bit of time to kill.

Rich finishes dressing up for the showing tonight, doing the last button on her suit with barely any frown showing on her face. She sighs, pondering how best to kill time before she has to go out and face the world, as the proud scion of the Fisk family. She touches her forehead as she thinks of Dex. Of how things had gotten between them, especially more recently. She wonders if she can find him in the Tower before the New Year's event. Maybe the two of them could have a talk.

You check the cuff-links at your wrist - your father's gift to you, the first Christmas after your unique abilities came into being, and think a moment. _ZEUS,_ ever-present, is able to respond to your call and informs you that Dex is currently discussing security plans in a conference room with several of your family's bodyguards, two floors down. He asks if there is a place you would like to have him summoned, or a space cleared for you, after he is finished. Perhaps for a bit of lunch in a reserved room, or a trip to the roof of the Tower which overlooks everything in the city save for the Avengers Tower and the Empire State Building. ...of course. You could always go to him. Nobody can actually _stop_ you from doing much of anything, anymore. _"Shall I inform him to attend you at his earliest convenience?"_

Rich ponders, frowning. It would be standard enough practice to have Dex summoned to a meeting. Something her mother would do, or… her father. But she _does_ just have the option to go to him, now, doesn’t she? Not an employer calling on him for his service. Just… a friend, hopefully, stopping by for a chat.

“No, Zeus. That won’t be necessary,” Rich replies, turning to the door and walking out into the hall. “What was the number of the room that he was in, again?” “…and can you tell me if there’s a baseball anywhere on the premises?”

_"Room D131,"_ Zeus informs dutifully. _"A baseball, you say? One moment. Scanning..."_ ... _"Security recordings indicate the presence of a baseball within Agent Poindexter's logged personal effects, stored within his housing within the tower. Is this information helpful to you?"_

"Thank you," Rich replies absently at the room number, heading to the elevator. She pauses at the latter news. "It... is, but..." Breaking into his room and going through his things might send a rather different message to Dex than she'd been hoping for, she realizes reluctantly. "If that's the only one, that will be all, I think." She makes to start heading down two floors, and navigating to the conference room Zeus had mentioned. "...No need to alert him that I'm coming," she says.

_"Understood."_ The tower's simulated intelligence replies, leaving you to make your journey. As you approach your destination, Zeus chimes in once more to inform you of upcoming appointments. Before tonight, you will be required to be tailored for a new suit to wear at the New Year's event, with your mother - you've got a bit of time before then to catch up with Dex. Then, you'll be needed for a personal speech rehearsal that will be made to precede or follow (the decision was left up to you) your father's speech to the public. Your father himself intends to coach you, beforehand.

Then...showtime.

Rich sighs as she thinks over the night's agenda. It'll be an eventful one, and high-stakes, as to be expected with appearances for her family. But she's... fairly confident in her speaking abilities - even if the prospect _is_ still nerve-wracking... so she'll try not to think about that for the moment, and hope for the best. As Rich approaches the conference room, she tries to extend her hearing for a moment, to see if she can eavesdrop on any of what Dex and the bodyguards are discussing.

You expertly reach into yourself, the fingers of your consciousness brushing the current of chi always streaming and whispering through your body. You nudge the flow firmly toward your auditory faculties and immediately are greeted with a wave of sounds in pitches too high and too low for human ears to naturally receive and translate. You concentrate through the excess and your ears easily penetrate the supposedly soundproofed walls of the briefing room.

You hear - and to a certain degree, and detect - Dex lightly pacing as he directs the sixteen other men in the room. "...stationed with multiple exit vehicles ready at a moment's notice, one to the south east, two on other side of the stage, and a foot-path cleared should all else fail. I want men at these vantage points overseeing the crowd and adjacent sniping positions. Kingpin and Red Queen have prioritized codename Rose over their personal security focus. If that kid gets a scratch, you know the consequences."

"Also, some unexpected VIPs have made themselves known and intend to attend the premiere: Luke Cage and his son, Lincoln Cage. They should be watched at all times, but do not engage unless Kingpin or myself gives the order. They're coming on neutral ground, and if the terms get violated the whole city will shit."

You arrive at the door - do you knock before you enter, enter abruptly, or wait to listen in more?

As she listens, Rich’s eyebrows jump at the word “Kingpin” - the fact that Dex is openly using that name with their security detail makes her reconsider and wonder about all sorts of things. And “Red Queen” - surely that must be her mother, then, but... how deeply was she involved in all this? And- _Rose?_ she thinks, feeling a... strange sensation in her chest at the thought of that. _...That’s pretty._

She stiffens at the mention of Luke Cage and of Lonnie. That might explain some of the tension in the room, but - why would they have decided to come now? Waiting in front of the door, she hesitates before knocking twice.

"Now - huh. Hey, computer: who's at the door?"

_"I have been instructed not to announce their presence, Mister Poindexter."_

"..." Dex heaves a weary sigh. "Right. Okay. Anderson, open the door." You detect the vibrations of footsteps and the smell of a recently pressed suit before the door opens to reveal you, much to the prickly-smelling surprise of everyone in the room, save Dex. He smells...not exactly surprised, but wary, almost.

"Richard," he greets neutrally. "What do we owe the pleasure?"

_Dammit, Zeus_, Rich thinks with a wince as she overhears that. She supposes she should have been more specific, but too late now. She feels a prickling of wariness herself at what she senses from everyone in the room, Dex included. But she’d decided to do things this way, so... “

Ah- hello, everyone,” she says, putting on a hopefully genuine-looking smile. “There was a matter I wanted to discuss with you, Mr. Poindexter. But I gather you’re all still busy, so it can wait until you’ve concluded things here.” She hesitates. “Keep up the good work, all of you,” she says with a bit of strain in her smile, and will close the door and withdraw (though not without trying to listen to the initial reactions from those inside) unless she’s given reason to stay.

"...Right," Dex resumes with a mild clearing of his throat - he's taken up smoking in the past few months. "Well, I think that covers everything you'll need to know now. An hour before showtime, we'll reconvene for last minute adjustments. We still need to interface with local law enforcement and get that OsCorp security equipment we were promised. In the meantime..." he pauses. "I'll be busy. All of you, get to work." There's some mild shuffling of feet and a few murmurs about the strangeness of your appearance right before the door opens and everyone becomes politely quiet, greeting you as they pass.

Dex is the last one out, standing in the doorway and tilting his head up and down as he looks you over. "Looking sharp. You wanted to speak to me?"

Rich stands back and waits for them to file out, returning the greetings with nods and smiles as the bodyguards pass by but not really bothering to speak with them until Dex comes out. “Thanks,” she says, hesitating for a moment. “Yeah. Would you want to go... anywhere else, in particular, to do that?”

"...Sure," he replies slowly. "Is this a private or professional engagement? Because I do have some things that need to get done. Respectfully. Your father wants everything running smoothly for tonight."

“Private,” Rich mutters, holding in a sigh. “It... doesn’t need to take too long. We can just talk here, or inside the room, if you’re pressed for time.” She‘s starting to feel some nagging doubts about whether this is a good idea, at his reaction, but, well- if he was happy to talk to her, she wouldn’t be needing to do this in the first place, right?

Poindexter takes a few steps back and one to the left, allowing you in. "Come on in, then." Once you're in, he closes the door behind you and turns. "So, what's up?" He asks with a hint of cheeriness that melts under a sub-vocal twinge of fatigue and suppressed feeling. "Been a while since we've chatted alone, huh?"

“Yeah, that’s... kind of why I wanted to do it now,” Rich replies, smiling faintly, albeit hesitantly. “...How have you been, Dex? Current - busyness for my father aside.”

Dex's head disrupts the air currents around him as it tilts up to the ceiling, then back to you. "Could use some air, actually. Feel like a trip to the roof? I'm not supposed to smoke indoors and I could go for one, if you don't mind."

“Sure. I don’t mind,” Rich says, nodding and mulling over the roof’s lack- as far as she’s aware- of VI surveillance. She’ll go with him to the elevator and up to the roof, not pushing more conversation on him until he seems more ready.

On the roof, the wind blows freely and with unforgiving chill that cuts into your skin, stymied only barely by your insulated clothing. Dex lights up a cigarette and takes a strong drag, exhaling a cloud of smoky carcinogens and toxins that are carried away into the rest of the New York air. Eventually, he speaks. "My therapist used to tell me to avoid drugs. Alcohol. Said they'd compromise the way I think. Make it harder for me to live a steady life."

He pauses, head tilted toward the cigarette between his shaking fingers. "Funny thing is, lately they're all that can keep me from shaking."

Rich shivers at the feeling of the wind, blowing through her clothes and into her skin, but centers herself with a breath after a moment, trying to tune it out, to focus on Dex. She waits quietly for him to speak, listening as he starts to speak, before her brow contracts with worry at where he goes with it. _Oh, Dex._ "...Have things been that bad?" Rich asks hesitantly. "The past few months- they've been keeping you busy, it seems like. But I didn't know you've been feeling so - under pressure," she finishes, the words feeling insufficient as they leave her lips.

"Hmph. Pressure's ain't got shit to do with it, kid," Dex flicks his cigarette, the stick spinning in multiple perfect rotations, smacking against the rooftop door and bursting into shreds and ash. "I've served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Worked as an FBI sniper. Serving under your father. I've lived a whole life under pressure. But now...that's getting close to being over." He grits his teeth, fingers twitching as he shoves them into his pockets. "I'm getting old. Pretty soon, they'll be looking for my replacement. No cure for it unless I want to get chopped up and stuck with some fancy OsCorp prosthetics, get my nerves turned inside out to fix the shakes and muscles."

Dex turns away from you, air currents carrying his scent - a tinge of liquor on his breath, maybe eight hours old.

"I - guess you would have, yeah," Rich acknowledges, nodding as she mulls over her bodyguard's experiences. She lets out a slow breath, nodding at what he says after. _Getting old._ She winces with sympathy at his bitter words, reaching out to him as he turns away before dropping her hand, heaving a sigh before speaking up. "I don't think you're too old, Dex," Rich says softly. "I know my mom was talking about that, a while back, but... _I'd_ still want to keep you around, if you want to stay."

She hesitates, a new question now coming to mind. "_Do_ you want to?"

_Yes,"_ comes the whip-cracking answer, before Dex stiffens, too late to stop his frantic reaction. "I...don't know what else I could do. I need this," he sighs. "Shit. Let's just forget about this, okay? Already showing my age by talking about this kind of crap with you.”

Rich barely manages to keep from jumping at the intensity of that reaction, eyes widening. She relaxes, mostly, as his voice goes back to normal, but stays intent on him at how he's reacted, now. "I wasn't planning to tell... my father, or anyone," Rich says, hesitant. "I'm _still_ not going to. I could-" She flounders for words for a moment, grimacing as she thinks. "Think of some- other job to keep you around in, if we had to? If that could work," she suggests, wanting to say more but hesitant to let on what she knows.

He pauses - you hear his beard crinkle and his forehead wrinkle, the signs of a frown. "What kind of job?"

"I... don't know," Rich admits reluctantly as he asks that. "Not off the top of my head. But." She exhales, rubbing her forehead. "You said you need this. And I'd want to help you, if I could." "...Besides," she adds, dropping her hand. "Getting old or not- shakes and cigarettes or not- I doubt there's anyone out there who can do the kinds of things you can do." She's quiet briefly. "Like back in Chinatown."

Dex laughs cynically. "Yeah. Guess so." He walks past you, pausing to give you a pat on the shoulder. "Thanks for the pep-talk, kid. Good luck with the speech and stuff tonight."

The rooftop door swings open and clangs shut as Dex leaves.

Rich's brow furrows at his doubtful comment, and she opens her mouth to question it before hesitating as he pats her on the shoulder. "Thanks," she says after a second, turning to direct her voice after him. "Good luck with- your stuff, for it." She grimaces as the door clangs shut, then heaves a sigh, sticking her hands back in her pockets and heading back inside herself. Time for the suit-fitting soon, she supposes. Fun, fun, fun.

[You're taken out of the tower for your fitting,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqoa9lO4XEw) alongside your mother who commands the driver to take you to an address in the lower north-east of Hell's Kitchen. "Take us to the Tinkerer," she says.

Who is he? Your mother explains that he is a tailor of special fabrics and an expert with unusual technologies. He's been in your family's exclusive employ since the arrest and subsequent passing of the family's previous supplier of protective clothing. In a workshop that smells of many strange chemicals, polish, and thin metalworks that stand out with the same kind of subtle strength as a spider's web, you are looked over and measured while your mother watches. The Tinkerer - Phineas - works diligently.

"Hmm...any preference on the colors?" Phineas asks, glancing quickly back at your mother. She opens her mouth, beginning to speak -

_...What kind of a place is this?_ Rich thinks wonderingly, as she takes in the different smells, the strange sensations, already considerably more intrigued by this errand than she'd expected she would be. "Red," she says on some impulse, cutting off her mother's words. She's not... completely sure why she'd said that, but- it feels right. "If- that's an option," Rich adds a bit more hesitantly. She wouldn't be at all surprised if her mother immediately vetoed it.

"...Red," your mother echoes slowly, seeming more intrigued than displeased by your interjection. "Perhaps some accents of white as well, Phineas."

"Of course, missus Fisk," replies the Tinkerer. "The materials have already been prepared, it is simply a matter of assembly. Shouldn't take long at all."

"Good. See that it doesn't," your mother replies. "In the meantime, why don't you introduce yourself to Richie?"

"Ah. Yes, of course," the Tinkerer turns to you, wiping his forehead with a gloved hand. "Phineas Mason, at your service. I'm the one responsible for improving the design on the fabrics you wear. I've worked with some Chitarui technology as well and collaborated with OsCorp on a few patents. I hope you find me satisfactory."

Rich blinks at her mother's reaction, surprised but more than willing to accept it. "Thank you," she directs to the Tinkerer, taking in her mother's and his words afterwards. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Mason. Rich Fisk," she introduces herself, extending her hand to him to shake. "My mother's spoken highly of your work," she adds with a smile- sure, it was only in the drive over, but that still counts.

Her eyebrows raise at what he says of his past work. "Oh, really? What kind of work did you do, for either of those?" she asks, intrigued.

"Flight technology and some jury-rigging of weapons technology for human use," he explains readily. "For OsCorp, I helped convert some power cells to a miniaturized size. I believe they are currently producing them en-masse for energy and weapons purposes. Some members of the Thunderbolts squad - "

"Now, now, Phineas," chides your mother coolly. "No need to overstate things."

"Yes, Missus Fisk," the Tinkerer replies automatically, his vigor dimming under a cloud of fear. "To put it simply: many different kinds of work. None so fulfilling as working for the Fisk family, of course.”

Rich drinks up the information he has to offer, nodding with interest clear on her face. _Thunderbolts?_ she thinks, surprise and curiosity flickering at the question of who those might be, and she opens her mouth to ask- but then deflates somewhat as her mother cuts him off. Figures.  
"...It sounds like we're lucky to have you," she tells him, hoping to sound friendly enough to counter the new fear instilled by her mother. "I look forward to - not _seeing_, obviously, but wearing this suit of yours. Thank you for making it for us." She smiles.

"You're...quite welcome," he replies with undisguised bemusement at your thanks. "I live to serve." As the Tinkerer resumes his work, your mother takes you aside. "Red?" She asks, pausing to straighten your shirt and smooth down the creases in your shoulders. "A very bold choice of color. You'll be sending a crimson wave through all the upper-class fashions for months to come."

"...Will I?" Rich says with surprise, not having considered any consequences like that. "I just, well. Wanted to try something different, I guess," she says with a small shrug, before realizing she shouldn't have as it might just have made new creases. "Do you think anyone will object?"

Your mother scoffs lightly. "Certainly not. If anything, they'll be jealous."

"Do you feel ready for tonight?"

_I hope so,_ Rich thinks, but what she _says_ is "Yes, of course." "I know this is important for us."

You feel a kiss on your forehead that you see in silhouette before it happens. "Great. I'm so proud of you, Richie. You make me proud every day."

"Thank you, Mom," Rich says with a smile, burying the feelings of guilt and discomfort stirred up by her words. How much is pride from a family like this worth, she wonders.

Night falls. Your mother, father, Dex, and yourself all travel together in a single reinforced limousine flanked by several armed men transported in slick Stark-tech electric vehicles. The assembly is to take place in the heart of the city - Central Park - and the closer you get to your destination the more greatly a gigantic crowd of thousands of glistening thunderbolts and buzzing heat stands out like ink blots against a sheet of paper. A comparison, of course, that is appreciated a little differently to your senses.

To celebrate the beginning of the New Year, all the big community leaders of New York City including the mayor, your family, the Cage duo, and prominent members of the Irish, Chinese, Russian, and Latinx communities are all to attend. You'll be giving a speech to the leaders of New York's future.

As the four of you disembark, surrounded by snow-covered trees, humming hot lights and the smell of civilians and media crowded to watch the event, you spy a familiar dense shape on the approach, next to a slightly larger shape...and a form with a field of particles that stretches and wafts around in a radius, intersecting with the energies of all she passes by. Lonnie, presumably his father, and Neena - AKA Domino.

Rich drums her fingers on her lap as she rides to the park in her family's limo, trying not to let the nervousness show on her face but unable to keep it down completely. Being faced with the prospect of thousands of people, who she'll be needing to speak to as a representative of her family is... daunting, to say the least. As they disembark from the limo, Rich starts at what she senses up on the approach. Two of them she'd known would be here, even if it does still send a jolt through her stomach to see Lonnie again, but- Neena, too? She wonders what's become of Neena, in the past few years. How she and Lonnie might react to seeing her again. ...How they might take the speech she'll be giving, on behalf of her family. Well. Hopefully she's worded it well enough to appeal to those who need to hear it.

The telltale shutter-click of photographers plays like a strange new musical instrument in the background as the two most prominent families of New York, Fisk and Cage, meet in the middle of the event. There is a brief moment of quiet, the smell of the elder Cage not dissimilar to his son's. But older, and perhaps more gracefully scented in his choice of cologne.

[Luke Cage speaks.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcsQAM1tPoU) "Mister Fisk. Happy New Year's to you and your family. It's a pleasure to meet you again." He extends a hand. Your father shakes it firmly, never turning away. "And you as well, Mister Cage. I hope we all can enjoy the coming year, ourselves and our families. I understand your son is to attend Empire State soon."

"And yours as well," Cage replies in his olive-oil voice. "Maybe we can work together to ensure they both have a good time." The handshake is broken. Cage turns to you. "Rich Fisk. Color me impressed - I didn't know you had such a passion for fashion. That color your choice?"

"It was," Rich says, reddening slightly herself at the sudden attention to the suit. "I felt like doing something different, Mister Cage. I'm sorry I'm not set up to appreciate _your_ fashion," she jokes, or tries to. "...Happy New Year's, to you and Lonnie."

Cage chuckles, low and deep. "Thank you. We appreciate it. And we appreciate that different can mean good."

He looks to Lonnie, who speaks up, extending a hand. "Lincoln Cage. I'm, uh, offering you a handshake.

"I'm glad to hear that," Rich replies neutrally, hoping she's not being... too friendly for her parents' taste.  
"_Rich_... ard Fisk," Rich replies to Lonnie, a small smile on her face. She holds out her hand, but for appearance's sake, slightly misses Lonnie's own, brushing past it before reorienting at the contact to clasp it and shake firmly.

As you shake hands with Lonnie, you feel...a buzzing in your head. Something foreign rooting around in there, suddenly surprised at your acknowledgement of its existence. The surprise travels down your arm, through your interlocked fingers, and back into...

Lonnie twitches a little. "Heh. Strong grip."

The handshake is broken, and with it the buzzing in your head.

"And this is...?" Your mother asks.

"Domino," Neena replies levelly. "I'm a friend of the family."

"With a special permit to carry firearms," Cage notes. "Don't worry, she's responsible."

Rich stiffens at the feeling of that sudden buzzing, unnerved and uncomfortable at the strange sensations, and when the handshake is broken she pulls back her hand faster than necessary, mouth hanging open briefly before she catches herself. "...Nice to meet you, Domino," Rich tells Neena, surprised at the thought of her with a gun and hoping nothing's going to come of it, tonight.

"You as well," Neena replies with practiced politeness.

"Perhaps our escorts could collaborate on the safety of the public, while our children take a moment to familiarize themselves with each other," your father suggests. "And the three of us may discuss _business."_

"By all means," Cage throws some words your way. "If neither of you mind.”

"I don't mind," Lonnie replies, looking at you. "If you don't."

"I don't mind a reason to put off the speech," Rich puts forward with a small chuckle, trying not to shift awkwardly under Lonnie's gaze. "We'll let you talk, Father, Mother, Mister Cage." She'll head away from the adults at that, presumably with Lonnie and potentially Neena, trying to get out of earshot. Which might be easier, with the background noise outside.

Lonnie offers his arm, elbow bumping into your arm. "Here, I can guide you. Probably hard to make sense of where you are and what's around you with all these people and noise, huh?"

Neena, meanwhile, quietly engages in conversation with Dex - who is little and less than enthused at sharing security details and plans with a girl barely eighteen. They follow the two of you at a distance. Your respective parents speak in brusque, but not impolite tones that carry little over the din of peaceful music played live on-stage for the crowd of hundreds - thousands? - in attendance throughout the park, held back from your VIP entrances by lines of security in uniforms.

You recognize a few as special-unit police outfitted with the latest in Roxxon weaponry and tactical armor suits that stand out by their scent of hissing ozone, originated in their energy-pistols and stun batons. On the stage some distance away, some of New York's finest local musicians play new modern lo-fi in the spirit of the wintery New Year. People sway and dance and cheer to the tunes, and the collective heat of all the surrounding bodies makes some of the cold in the air rush away. As if the festivity itself could defeat the whims of the world.

["So..."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRSfFmZan24) Lonnie tries to begin, opening his mouth and closing it. "Huh. This feels awkward. Is this awkward?"

"Oh, thank you," Rich replies to Lonnie, taking his arm but deigning not to confirm or deny how hard it is right now. She takes note of Neena's conversation with Dex, ears pricking up and interest piqued- that wasn't the capacity she'd expected Domino to be here in. _But... good for her, right? Right,_ she thinks, trying to dispel the uncertainty. She exhales as the music carries over the crowds, humming along quietly under her breath and feeling calmed by it, at least somewhat, even with everything else to keep track of. "A little, yeah," Rich replies to Lonnie with a faint smile. "Though I think it's _more_ awkward now that you point it out."

She pauses, letting go her grip on Lonnie's arm. "Been a while, hasn't it? What have you been up to?" she asks, trying to keep a light tone of voice to mask her hesitant thoughts and feelings.

"Oh, you know. School, hanging out with friends, plotting your family's destruction to ensure that the Cages rule New York..." Lonnie pauses playfully for your reaction. "You?”

In the backdrop, faintly heard over the noise even to your attuned senses, Neena asks Dex about various security points and exits that he'd arranged in the event of something going terribly wrong. Dex, under orders to be accommodating, gives terse and gritted-teeth responses. His head never turns to look her way - he's locked solely on yourself and Lonnie.

Rich blinks at Lonnie's last words but manages to hold down any other show of startling, giving a small laugh after a second once it registers that was a joke. "Private tutors, hanging out with... a couple friends," she replies.

Elektra might more or less count, right? Until she'd left. And Dex... and Zeus, sometimes when she _really_ longed for someone to talk to. "My parents haven't been too thrilled to send me to school. But at least that's going to be changing soon. Assuming we're not destroyed first," she replies with a faint smirk. She winces slightly at what she makes out of the conversation behind them, Dex's irritation quite palpable. _I should probably try and do something about that._ "So, Neena," she says, turning her head back towards the two of them. "You're a bodyguard now? Head of security? Either way, congratulations."

Neena pauses in her interrogation of Dex to give you her attention. "Thanks. Though you might want to keep it down a little, if we're keeping our first impressions...discreet." She returns to trading words with your bodyguard.

"Yeah, she's my...escort, I guess," Lonnie scratches the back of his head. He keeps it shaved down, rather than being bald - you can sense the way the tiny roots of his hair press against his dense skin, though your sense of him is continually disturbed by the booming of noise from the sound stage. And his chi signature is, as always, muffled. "After she came to Harlem, we got her set up nice. Neena never wanted to go anywhere alone. Scared that someone might come for her, y'know?" Lonnie explains, exhaling heavily. "So I went with her and she went with me. Eventually, she started putting her head into getting tougher and leaning into her...gift. Now she's my bodyguard, and anyone who wants to pick a fight with me has to get through her. Heh. And they rarely do."

Lonnie tilts his head, examining you curiously. "So I guess you getting schooled part of why my old man wanted you and I to 'meet' here. And why _your_ old man agreed. Peace talks and all that, eh? Or are you still...not convinced?"

"True," Rich replies to Neena with a small nod and pursed lips. She didn't _think_ anyone would be listening who didn't already know about their past encounter, but what with surveillance being what it was... "...Escort?" Rich asks Lonnie with raised eyebrows before the actual meaning of his words registers. Reddening a bit, she quiets and listens intently to what Lonnie explains of what's happened since then. "...Sounds like you both have helped each other out a lot," she says, smiling with some... mixed feeling stirring in her chest. Jealousy? "That's good to hear, that you've both been doing well," She does keep her voice down to say that, per Neena's advice. "Oh, so this was your father's idea. I did wonder about that," Rich comments, nodding.

She exhales at his last words, holding in a wince at the memories of the denial she'd been in when she left them. _I was such an idiot._ "...I'm convinced," she replies, quiet. "Sorry about, uh, kind of blowing up at you, last time."

"Hey, it's all cool. I was a bit of a cocky shit about it, wasn't I?" Lonnie laughs good-naturedly. "Water under the bridge. Seems like you've been doing okay in the meantime. Wasn't kidding about your strong grip. You been practicing blind karate or something?" He thinks for a moment, then adds "Not that I don't think blind people can't do karate. No offense. Um...third ass-covering statement."

"A _bit_, yes," Rich acknowledges, smirking now despite herself. "...Something like that. I thought it might do me some good to get tougher, too," she admits- Dex might not like that, but it wasn't like she was saying anything _too_ secret. She snorts at his 'ass-covering', starting to get more comfortable as they talk. "Everyone knows blind people make great martial artists. Want me to break a board to prove it to you?" she asks a bit playfully. "What about you? Practicing albino tae kwon do?"

"...wait that first thing I said was a double negative so does that mean I _do_ think- oh okay." Lonnie stops abruptly as you speak. "Hah. Hah. Yeah, no. I just..." he reaches out a hand and flexes his bicep demonstratively in a way that makes his tailored suit very uncomfortable and uncertain of its own integrity. Then he realizes you "can't" see and says: "I just flexed. Menacingly. It solves a lot of problems, you know."

"But really..." he shrugs. "It's mostly just good genes that got me this way. My mom's a genetic experiment, so's my dad. And I came out of the mix-up with super strength, rhino-skin, and...other stuff. Didn't really ever have to _work_ for anything, you know? Kind of sucks."

Rich's eyebrows jump at his flexing and she finds herself briefly _quite_ distracted at the way his suit strains, and wondering what it feels like underneath. She quickly tries her best to banish that thought. "I... guess that _could_ scare people off," she replies, with an uncertain-again smile. "Genetic...?" Rich stares briefly as he so casually admits that. Though the implication of what he's _not_ admitting about himself does not escape her, as he continues talking. "I can think of worse fates," she says a bit dryly. "There must be _something_ you'd be able to work for, if you wanted."

"I mean, I could always try running for president." Lonnie chuckles. "A metahuman, interracial, _albino_ six-foot-five muscle man as the leader of the free world. Could you imagine?"

"I'd vote for you," Neena calls from the back.

"They'd _never_ get tired of writing news headlines about you," Rich replies, amused and snickering herself at Neena's interjection.

He hums, amused. "But for work…I dunno. I guess school? I've always been bright. Put a problem in front of me and I solve it. But when you hit college, you suddenly have choice in what kinds of problems you wanna spend the rest of your life solving and it's all...so much. I can't think about it for too long, it just...overwhelms me. I'm hoping I'll get there and...figure out what I want, y'know?" Lonnie glances at you, voice dropping a little lower. You don't think it travels back to Dex or Neena. "What about you? You got anything you want to work towards?"

"...Yeah, I guess so," Rich says, more thoughtfully herself now as he talks about college. "I've never had- erm. Having that much choice _would_ be a change," she says, reorienting mid-sentence. "But, well, at least you've _got_ some time to figure it out. Right?" She hesitates as Lonnie lowers his voice to ask that. "...A couple things, at least," she says, her own voice quieter. "Self-improvement. For one. And- I wouldn't mind being out of my parents' shadow, to start on the other one," she says vaguely. "Maybe college would be a good time for that, too."

Lonnie's aura, still so opaque to you, grows a touch darker at your choice of words regarding news headlines. It occurs to you that, all his bravado aside, he doesn't really like the attention given to him for any of the things he's just listed - being the child of superheroes. Being a mixed boy, poster child for progressives and hated foe of bigots simply for existing. Being albino in a world of color.

But when you stumble over your words, Lonnie suddenly looks at you and there's a flash of _understanding_ in his aura that brightens like a crackling flame fed on twigs and kerosene. It grows only as you finish speaking. His lips speak the noise: "Huh." The noise carries a message all its own. Wondering. Hoping.

Lonnie [understands](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ah1kucA5rw). And he thinks...maybe _you_ understand, too.

Abruptly, the older boy clears his throat, keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard. "Say, you wanna get out of here?"

Rich feels a twinge of regret as she registers Lonnie's aura changing at her words, and it hits her that he _would_ have stronger feelings on all that than his jokes would suggest. An apology comes to her lips, though she's unsure whether it would actually help to voice it. But what she feels from Lonnie _after_ that... knocks the thoughts out of her head, as she senses that from him, that wondering... and finds herself wondering, too. Then Rich jolts at the question Lonnie asks. "What- _now_?" she asks, almost incredulously but keeping her voice low . _I have the speech..._ She _has_ to give it more than she _wants_ to give it, granted, but even so- "Wouldn't we be getting Neena and- uh- Dex in trouble, if we just vanished?"

"They'll be okay. My dad won't make a fuss, so long as we both come back in one piece. And your guy..." Lonnie stops, thinking. "Hm. I guess you're right that he'd get in trouble. Don't know if you'd feel...bad about that? But I don't think he'd get the axe, if you catch my drift. Guy's your dad's right hand man." He extends a hand. "Come on. It'll be fun. We can both rebel and act like normal kids for a change. When else will we ever be able to?"

"....I'm holding my hand out to you." He adds.

"I..." Rich wavers at Lonnie's offer, feeling a sudden, intense _longing_ at what he suggests. She imagines leaving all this behind, the thousands of people, the crushing weight of expectations... And she is sorely tempted. ...But she wouldn't _really_ be leaving them behind, would she? At the end of the night, she'd still have to go back home, and face the results of her actions. And Lonnie's father might not make a fuss, but... her parents weren't Lonnie's father.

"I'm sorry," she mutters, shaking her head. "I- _want_ to. Believe me. Really, I do," she admits, words thick with emotion. "But it would be... bad. Not just for me. But I _would_ feel bad about it, for Dex, even with... who he is," she says quietly- the words '_your dad's right hand man_' bouncing around inside her skull and making her shiver.

"...huh." Lonnie says again. This time, understanding...but sad. Disappointment the color of withered tangerines. "That's too bad. But I get it. You know, maybe we could - " "Lincoln," Neena calls out, the both of you turning to face her. You've wandered quite far away from your parents by now and it looks like the stage musicians are winding down. Your time is coming. "It's almost time for the ceremony. We've got to get to our positions."

"Come on, Richard," Dex calls. "It's almost your time to shine." The band begins its last song…

Lonnie exhales. "Well, I gotta go get ready. My strings need to be tightened before I can dance on that stage." He chuckles bitterly, then sighs again. "See you around?"

"Sorry," Rich murmurs again, grimacing at his clear disappointment. Even if it _is_ a relief that he gets it, too. She leans in curiously at what he starts to suggest, but... Then they're interrupted, and only now does she realize just how far they've wandered. She tenses at Dex's words, stage fright making her stomach clench at the thought. "...Yeah. See you," Rich replies, with a small sigh of her own. "We should get a chance at school, at least," she says. "...Good luck," she adds, trying to impart some added meaning into it, and will return to Dex and her parents, getting ready to go up for her speech.

You are shepherded back to your appointed position, greeted by parents brimming with measures of calm, satisfaction, and the ever-present hint of alertness that grows as you are prepped to speak. You'd been given certain points to work with, statements to recite that would bolster and underline the points your father was intended to make following your own. Certain words and phrases you'd intended to say in your drafts were rewritten, crossed out, or restructured to better suit the ultimate intent: all for the sake of improving your presentation, of course. Positive publicity, engineered down to the decimal point.

On stage, Lonnie and Luke Cage stand with their hands behind their backs, posed proudly for the cameras. Members of your father's circle, including Kenneth Jones - the current head of the Roxxon Energy Corporations. John Hammer. Rosalie Carbone. Mayor Norman Osborn. All in attendance, perfect pieces in their place. New York's finest offerings, united.

"Richard..." your father puts a hand on your shoulder as the two of you ascend together, your mother waiting on one side of the podium while he takes his place on the other. "Remember," he whispers in your ear. "You are my child. And you will never fail to make me proud."

And then...it's all on you. Cameras whir. Photographs flash and click, the snaps of energy barely registering as you look out into a sea of glowing life energy that looks back at you. It's almost like you're looking at the collective chi of New York itself. The spiritual lifeblood of a city that never sleeps.

Now it waits for you.

Rich nods slightly at her father's words in her ear, wanting to thank him but her mouth feeling glued shut in front of the cameras. But she proceeds up to her place, takes a deep, quiet, breath, and then begins to speak. “Good evening, everyone. I’m Rich Fisk. Thank you all for coming out here tonight,” she begins- warmly, as best she can.

“I’ve lived in Hell’s Kitchen all my life. I know I may not have been out and around as much as some, but I’d like to think that I’m just as much a New Yorker as any of you. No matter the color of our skin, or the districts we may hail from,” she adds, “We all are citizens of this great city, and we live together under the same sky, looking towards the future together.” “Much has been happening in the city, lately,” she says, getting more serious now. “Gangs of criminals spreading unrest in Hell’s Kitchen. Making citizens' lives unsafe. Instead of thanking the work Fisk Enterprises and Oscorp have done to keep order, they strike out against the powers that be, in simple acts of anarchy.” “But in the coming year, I can assure you that my family will not bow to these terrorists and vigilantes. Fisk Enterprises will do all it can to bring safety back to our streets."

She pauses, briefly but deliberately, even if she's the only one who notices. "And _I_ will share my strength with you, as best I can. To see that you all are protected from the criminals who would do you harm.” “Thank you again. And have a Happy New Year, everyone,” she concludes.

The crowd cheers. It's deafening - so loud that you have to redirect your chi to _reduce_ your ability to hear temporarily, just so you don't get a splitting headache. And you can feel the vibrations in the air, tingling and raising hairs all throughout your skin. Your words were perfectly packaged, and delivered just as your parents would've wanted. And as a reward, for one bright and shining moment you are the center of the world.

As the crowd cheers, Rich briefly lets herself go and she feels... relieved. Triumphant. She'd done her job, she'd delivered the words and message she was meant to, even with her small tweaks of hidden rebellion... They're cheering for _her_. Why had she been so afraid of this? She'd never been recognized like this before, and she feels herself smiling wide- it's almost intoxicating. Buoyed high on the energies of the crowd, she gives a small bow before stepping back, still smiling but ready to let the ceremony proceed as it will, after her.

You take a step back, ready to descend from the podium. When suddenly...music begins to play.

A new song begins...low, dark, and melancholy. It wasn't on the scheduled pieces to be played - and if it was, it'd have been a choice very much at odds with the mood you'd just been intended to set with your speech. _["It's not just you...but also me..."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35_wen45S3E)_

Your father looks around, ordering the music to be shut off. The musicians sit placidly in their seats, nobody playing. The DJ stands up and says: "This wasn't on the playlist!" Neena and Dex are on their guards. Luke and Lonnie look around warily. Your mother reaches for you...

And suddenly your vision _EXPLODES_ and you _SEE..._ _Darkness. The scent of smoke and flames. You're amidst the screams and wreckage of the ruin of your family's future...and you are covered in blood._ _Blood that isn't yours._ _Devils chanting in the streets. Angels descending from on high. The skeleton of death leans close and wraps his arms around your waist, leaning in for a kiss..._

_He says..._

"HE'S GOT A BOMB!" Someone on stage screams - and you see, before it happens...a man bulldozes past security, tearing open his evening jacket to reveal...a bomb jacket. In silhouettes of the future-soon-present, you see explosions engulfing all of you - your parents included. Both of them will die with you. Unless... Unless. Unless. You choose.

Rich staggers at the vision- _the dream-_ clasping at her forehead, the world gone away before her before she hears someone scream... The breath catches in her throat at the vision of the future. The explosion engulfing her parents. She feels frozen. Paralyzed. She can't- But she can't _afford_ to freeze-

She has to...

[Act.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi7WH7_NO9I)

As the vision fades, she rushes forward... to her mother's side of the stage.

She grabs for her mother, trying to grab her bodily and jump with her off of the stage, clear of the bomb.

In the span of a second, your body begins to grow warm, the presence of hot, crackling chi setting snowflakes to steam as you force raw lifeforce into your bones and muscles and brain so you can react - faster than any person should be able to move without ripping themselves apart from the strain.

In the span of half-a-second following that, you've grabbed your mother by the arm and tackle her off-stage. Dex is just raising his gun, his reflexes slowed by age. Neena, too, raises her gun while taking a dive backward off the stage. The Cage men square themselves, surprised yet unafraid. They are, of course, the least in danger of a man with a bomb vest. Indeed, Luke Cage chooses instead to charge forward to meet the bomber head-on.

There is a thunderous roar...and then there is smoke and fire and screams...the last thing you see is your father's chi aura being scattered to the winds...

......

...........

..............

You wake up covered in soot, choking on smoke. There's fire everywhere and people are stampeding. The noise of so many roaming feet and the weight of them makes the ground shake.

Your mother groans, still conscious but bleeding from her forehead and several cuts over her arms and legs from shrapnel. You are unharmed, miraculously, and as you turn your attention to the stage you see that Lonnie, Neena, and Luke Cage are both equally unharmed. Dex lay on the ground, his life energies in frenzy, ebbing and sparking as he struggles to stay alive. Something has hit him in the head. Something sharp, lodged in.

You do not see your father.

_"This is a message from the Guardian Devils,"_ a synthesized voice declares over the sound-stage's sparking and sputtering speakers. _"Happy New Year.”_

And all around in the crowd, men and women approach the stage with pistols drawn and masks on their faces. For some reason, you know what they look like. Red Oni masks, with cruel tusks and beady malicious eyes. Coming for _you._

Rich coughs on smoke, raising a sleeve to cover her mouth, senses extended as she tries to get her bearings. Her mother's injuries are of the most immediate concern, but she's both conscious and alive. She's shocked that Neena is fine, though- in the back of her head, somehow she's not _quite_ as surprised- but the sight of Dex's ebbing life energies makes her vision flash red with fear and fury.

And missing from the stage... _Father..._ she thinks distantly, horror seeping over her.

At the sound of the synthesized voice, she's jarred back into focus. The Guardian Devils- _they did this, **they** did this to him..._ She sees the masked enemies closing in, and as they come into her Sight she feels fury rise up in her chest, engulfing her. They did this to her parents. To her family, her friend. They're going to **regret** it. Jumping to her feet, she charges at the nearest masked figure, throwing a vicious strike at their throat.

Your punch catches the Guardian Devil right under the mask, dead center of their throat. The dizziness of only recently returning to consciousness throws off your strength a little, though, so instead of crushing their trachea you only make them bend over and gag, coughing harshly.

Your mother is dazed and seems barely lucid, simply looking to the stage where your father once stood and muttering to herself. "…Wilson? Wilson? Wilson? Wilson?"

Meanwhile, the Guardian Devils on either side of the stage begin to rush in...and Domino, Lonnie, and Luke Cage go to work.

Neena's shots with her pistol are avoided by the Guardian Devils...but they find less fortune with the Cage duo, who both hit one attacker each with fists like sledgehammers. The terrorists drop, their ribcages completely shattered. The Guardian Devil engaged with you fires his weapon point-blank, hoping to score a mark...

But you already are seeing the movement before it happens, and you bend backwards to let the bullet fly right over your face, past your mother's earlobe.

_Mom,_ Rich thinks with a wince at her mother's muttering, concern for her cutting through the red fog over her eyes. She... pauses, impressed, at Lonnie and his father's efficiency, feeling a twinge of grim satisfaction at the sounds and sight of their auras. The gunshot from point-blank jars her back to reality, and she ducks back- right before her foe actually fires. But a shot coming that _close_ to her mother is enough cause for fear and _anger_ itself, and she lashes out with a kick at their wrist holding the gun, hoping to shatter it.

You succeed - exceedingly so, as you watch and _feel_ in great detail the snapping of bones that travels up your leg and right into the hissing heat in your chest, fueling it. The man drops in an instant, collapsing from sheer shock and pain.

A vicious grin spreads on Rich's face as they drop to the ground, and she feels adrenaline pumping through her as she takes a breath. _Right. Who's next?_ she thinks grimly.

Who's next turns out to be an unfortunate Guardian Devil mook who, pinned down by Neena's returning fire, is caught unawares when Luke Cage's fist smashed through the barrier they'd been hiding behind and slams their face into the dirt. Lonnie runs over in the direction he saw you last, coughing through smoke and flames. More Guardian Devils approach, brandishing pistols and rifles. One hops off the stage to land in front of you and begins shooting. And you... You react faster than you ever have before, chi channeling into your palm... And you _stop the bullet with your hand._

Distantly, you hear Lonnie scream _"I FUCKING KNEW IT!"_

Rich stiffens at the sound of gunfire, raising a hand on some strange half-learned instinct... And she's _completely floored_ at what comes of it. The bullet stopping on her hand. _Well,_ she thinks distantly, feeling her hand reverberating with chi and the impact. _...I guess I'm more like Elektra than I thought._ No longer _nearly_ as fearful of the bullets, she charges forward for the Guardian Devil, attacking all out with a punch aimed at the solar plexus.

Your punch hits with crushing force, the masked menace flailing and falling back hard to the ground as they suddenly find breathing and remaining conscious exceptionally difficult. You notice a Devil on-stage take aim as you disable one of their brethren, but you're close enough to the stage that you grab them by the ankle and yank them down to your level, where you easily dispatch them with a flurry of blows. Which is when the last Guardian Devil takes your mother hostage, gun pressed to her neck.

Everything stills as Rich senses that. _Shit-_ she thinks, her blood running cold. _How did they- no, no, I shouldn't have left her..._ "Let her _go_," she snaps at the Guardian Devil, strain in her voice.

"Listen to him, man," Lonnie coaxes. "Be smart. You ain't getting out of this if you get any more blood on your hands."

"Shut up!" Hisses the Guardian Devil, while your mother simply continues to look at the now-vanished podium where your father had been. "All of you scum are the ones who aren't getting out of this. Blood is on _all_ your hands!"

Luke looks around contemplatively, noticing the approach of several more Devils - these ones armed with shotguns and rifles. "I'll be right back. You three can take care of this?" Lonnie waves him off, while Neena keeps her pistol trained on the hostage taker.

"I - I - wait! Get back here!" The man yelps, perplexed at Cage's seeming indifference to the situation.

"_I_ didn't kill _your_ friends," Rich growls, teeth clenched almost painfully now. "If you let her go, you can walk away. But if you _don't_..." She lets herself trail off, but her mouth is dry. _What can I say to save her?_ "You're not going to win, here. But you can- make this end better for yourself, at least."

"I..." the man pulls the gun away from your mother's neck for just an instant as the gravity of his situation begins to weigh on him. "I just..."

Lonnie envelops the man's hand and pistol in his own and crushes it. The bullets inside go _popopopop_ all at once under the pressure as the man screams, and when Lonnie withdraws his grip the Devil's hand is a bloody charred mess. "You made the right choice here, buddy." Lonnie tells him.

Even with her anger at the man, Rich can't hold back a wince at that crushing sound of his hand. Immense gratefulness to Lonnie quickly overtakes her discomfort, though, and she sags in relief.

Luke strolls back into sight with two unconscious men being dragged behind him, their Devil masks askew. He drops them at your feet and coughs as he gets a mouthful of smoke. "We should get moving. More will be here soon." Your mother sits silently in the grass and snow, saying nothing. On stage, Dex lays moaning softly and occasionally twitching jerkily.

As Luke makes his statement, a Guardian Devil comes up from behind him to shoot the giant bulletproof black man in the back.

The bullets, of course, bounce off harmlessly.

"...I need to get them to a hospital," Rich says, eyes trained on Dex, before she flinches at the sound of more gunfire. "Can- someone carry him?" she asks a bit feebly. She could ask it for her mother, but she doesn't want to let her leave her sight now. _And Father-_ Her stomach twists, but she can't think about that right now- he must be alive, somehow, she needs to focus on Dex and her mother- "Lonnie...?" she asks, grabbing Vanessa and lifting her up in her arms.

"Yeah, I got 'em." Lonnie looks Dex over, whistling grimly to himself. "Jeez. Shrapnel got him right in the forehead. Okay, man, don't die on me now..." he _very_ carefully picks up your bodyguard. "Just stay behind me," Luke commands. "Neena, pick off anyone who tries to get us at range. I'll handle the rest." Luke looks back to you. "Don't expect this to mean we'll be friendly in the future. This was a neutral ground. And I'm staying neutral. For tonight."

Rich winces at Lonnie's words but tells herself all she can do is hope- or maybe pray- for the same, herself. "Thanks, Lonnie," she mutters. She hesitates at Luke's address to her, but nods slowly. "...I understand, sir. But from what that one said- this was an attack on us both," she says. "And for tonight, then- We should - have exit vehicles on either side of the stage," she says, a memory of Dex's words to their staff flickering in her mind, more than a little painfully at the intrusive thought that she might not hear him talk again. "Shouldn't be far."

Cage shakes his head. "The bomb going off took care of those. Any other exits?" Neena pipes up. "I know they have exits to the north-east and north-west. I have a feeling those didn't get disabled yet, judging by the gunfire coming from that area." Cage cracks his knuckles. "Okay, then let's get going."

With Luke Cage as your human power drill, you bore a hole through the stampeding crowd and vicious masked Devils, until finally you reach one of the reserve exit vehicles and pile into the armored safety of the limousine. Then it's off to the hospital.

Away from the fire, the smoke, and [the ashes of the only father you've ever known.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izqptPcaegI)


	4. Let the Old Dreams Die (Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a long delay, we're happy to be bringing you another session in our Let the Devil Out campaign. We had a lot of fun with this one - and there's more fun to be had in the future. Thank you, everyone, for the kudos, the views, and the bookmarks. While we do this for our own fun, knowing that there's a small audience out there who really enjoys our work is deeply encouraging and makes me all the more enthused to be sharing it publicly. Thanks, from the bottom of our hearts!

_"Good morning, everyone - this is Trish Walker of Trish Talk, bringing you..."_

A soft clearing of the throat.

_"...I have to be honest, New York. It's hard to roll out the usual welcome this time. After last night's tragedy in Central Park, which will be the focus on this broadcast session today, I think we're all still in a state of shock. Seven dead and dozens counted among the injured, including friend of the mayor and wealthy businessman Wilson Fisk, in a violent bombing and assault by the self-proclaimed Guardian Devils of New York."_

_"The name they've given this night of carnage? Devil's Night. Our sources, corroborated with our opposite number in ‘Just the Facts With J. Jonah,’ indicate that a Guardian Devil involved with the attack has been arrested by the NYPD and is under heavy guard, although no statement by Police Chief Watanabe has been given at this time. Mayor Osborn has promised ‘a swift and fierce response’ in response to the attack…”_

\- - - - - - -

You had all been [whisked](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjEF6gjHpP8) into the hospital, under guard by the remainder of your family's private security, bolstered by the Harlem muscle brought in to oversee the Cages and their bodyguard, Neena. Overburdened by the influx of patients coming in from Central Park, you had been shunted to the side with your relatively minor injuries, in lieu of your mother, whom you had been told suffered severe third degree burns from the blast - and Dex, still unconscious and bleeding from the piece of shrapnel that had sliced right through his forehead, cracking the skull and pressing in on his brain. You could see the internal injuries and the way Dex's spirit seemed to...melt with time, growing weaker, more fragmented...until he had been taken away to the emergency room and left you alone, surrounded by guards and strangers and the sounds of groaning and bleeding people, the scent of scorched flesh and burnt hair.

The new year was off to a bloody start.

Nearby, Lonnie and Neena have been enlisted into helping the staff treat their patients, while the former’s father Luke Cage converses quietly with a newcomer man, their words difficult to hear amidst the turmoil of the building without your desire to focus in on them. Lonnie had point-blank refused to leave when you had arrived, arguing with his father to the point it almost seemed liable to escalate until the elder Cage had capitulated. Without saying it, you’re pretty certain he didn’t intend to leave _you_.

One of your bodyguards raises a hand to his ear – you’re close enough you can hear the words transmitted before he relays them to you. Your mother’s treatment has been finished, and she will be clear to leave shortly. In the meantime, she has asked for you.

Rich sits in the waiting room, dimly aware of her surroundings but feeling disconnected from them all the same. Once the adrenaline, the anger and fear from the attack and the heat of battle had died down, the truth had sunk in, slow and terrible. Her own father was dead. She hadn't been able to believe it in the moment, she'd seen him for her whole life as someone so powerful, untouchable... And as the Kingpin, it had seemed like his rule over the city had been just that.

Until the Guardian Devils had come out to take him down.

She felt helpless, sitting there, seeing Dex's aura melt away and feeling a strain deep inside as she silently urged the hospital staff to go faster, red-tinged ideas of forcing them to take her mother and Dex in for treatment first flickering in and out of her head. Lonnie had come to stay, but she hadn't felt capable of talking to him. Not now. What could she possibly say? Rich stirs as it registers that the bodyguard is speaking to her, sighing in relief at the words about her mother, even as anxiety spikes in her stomach too as she wonders what Vanessa Fisk will have to say.

"...I'll come and see her," she tells the bodyguard quietly. "Any word about De- Mr. Poindexter?" she asks, before standing slowly, letting herself be directed to her mother's room.

_...Is she going to blame me? Blame me for Father?_

"Doctor Oyama touched down two hours ago," he informs you gently. "He saw to your mother and then she had him take charge of the surgery on Poindexter. The guy's a miracle worker - if anyone can help, it'll be him."

"...Thank you," Rich says, the knot in her chest loosening just slightly. Still, she feels a sense of deep unease, knowing Dex's fate is out of her hands. _...He has the best doctor we could find. I- I'm sure it's going to be all right,_ she tries to convince herself. "What room is my mother being treated in?" she asks, and will head off, navigating as best she can and asking for directions as necessary.

He gives you directions and accompanies you with one additional man up to your mother's room on the fourth floor, the security still alert even in the supposed sanctuary of the hospital after the brazenness of the bombing. And besides, it wasn't as if hospitals hadn't been taken off the neutral ground before - Frank Castle could be thanked for that.

You are informed that you will have ten minutes with your mother before she is required to rest further, and ushered in through the door, given privacy. Her aura is...strange. Broken and jagged, pointing out in sharp pieces at the edges like knives. You'd been informed she had suffered serious third-degree burns on the left side of her body, largely around her neck and lower jaw, requiring skin transplants to repair the damage. You can smell the gauze and bandages pressed against her once flawless skin, the chemicals of her IV drip, the sterile comfort of her hospital bed.

"Richie..." your mother whispers, her words low and hoarse. "You look...tired."

Rich tenses as she takes in the sight of her mother's aura, teeth gritting as she observes the jagged, sharp parts to her appearance. She wonders just how bad the burns had been, whether the damage comes from the physical wounds she had taken or from the... emotional toll. She feels dimly thankful that all she can smell is the sterile scents of the hospital's treatment, rather than any charred flesh from her mother's skin.

"...You _sound_ tired, Mom," Rich says with a sad smile. "I'm... I'm sorry," she says after a second, voice catching. "About- all this. About Father, how he- and how _you_ got hurt..." She can feel her eyes starting to water.

"Sssshhh..." she whispers, the sound trailing as her lips quiver and stretch from the effects of the painkillers in her system. "You...did the best you could. That's all I...ever expected from you." Your mother pats her bedside. "Please...come closer. I need...my baby."

_Did I?_ Rich thinks, feeling a stab of guilt even at her mother's attempted reassurance. _...You wouldn't have expected I could do more. But could I have saved them? Is- there some way I could have?_ _Like if I had realized what it meant, in my dream?_ Rich's breath catches in her throat as her mother beckons her closer, but she nods silently, stepping forward. "...I'm here, Mom," she says softly, wiping her eyes with a hand before sitting down beside her.

Your mother takes your hand, holding you gently and running her thumb over your knuckles. "If I hadn't seen with my own eyes...I'd never have believed it. You've become so...strong." She takes in a shaky breath, sniffing. "There are..._things..._" The way she says 'things' twists something in her aura, deadly and cold. "...that are going to need to happen soon, dearest. To protect us. To protect our family. I..."

She sighs. "I would've shielded you longer if I could have. Wilson and I - " she stops and groans sharply, as if the very speaking of your father's name pained her in a way no burns or fire ever could. "...we wanted things to be different for you."

"...the people who did this to us. They're going to pay." Your mother promises you quietly. "Every. Last. One."

Rich does feel a swell of pride, at that, shivering at her mother's touch. Even if the pride is bittersweet, it _means_ something, hearing that praise from her. But her moment of feeling it is snuffed out quickly at her mother's continued words. “What kinds of things?” Rich asks warily, feeling a chill as she sees that in her mother's aura. _Is this- are you talking about criminal 'things' to protect us? Or- something somehow worse?_ "...You both took good care of me up until now."

The lie comes easy on her tongue, because she knows her mother needs to hear it. And as Vanessa declares vengeance will be coming for their family, a spark lights in her chest, embers of anger renewed as the memories of flames and fighting come back to her mind... "What can I do?" Rich asks. "To help get back at them."

"You're special. You have...skills..." the Red Queen whispers. "When some time has passed, I'll see to it that you can keep honing them. Use them, so that nobody else can ever hurt us like this again. Right now I only need you to be strong. And..." She squeezes your hand. "To be by my side."

Rich nods silently in acknowledgment of her skills, feeling an odd twinge she doesn't know quite what to make of at being called 'special'. She stares blankly at her mother's words about honing her skills, ideas rising up and being pushed down at just what 'using them' might involve, with her family... She _does_ want to make the Guardian Devils pay. But she's uncertain, about all the rest. "...I can do that," she says in answer to her mother's words- focusing on what her mother wants in the here and now, as she says it. "I'm here. And I'll- stay strong," she promises, hoping that she can keep it.

"Good," she pats your hand. "Good..." Her fingers tremble, just a little. "Did I ever tell you...about the day you were born?"

Rich's eyes widen. "I... don't think so, Mom," she says with a shake of her head, feeling a wary anticipation rising in her chest. "...What was that day like?"

"Oh...oh it was a wonderful day..." your mother leans her head back, resting into the pillow. "Five years. Five...long...years...without you." Her words begin to grow muddier, her aura...smearing, slightly, as the drugs continue to sink into her system. You think would be asleep already, if not for your presence - and the memory to which she clings feverishly. "I was nine months pregnant when the Thanatos happened. When the big...dusting of the world happened. We already had your nursery ready. You were going to be born in the tower. Then..."

"We were dancing, your father and I, when I felt it..." her hand drifts down to her belly. "I felt...it happen. The loss. I - " she swallows thickly, shivering. "I felt you die inside me. And vanish into nothing."

Rich feels a lump in her throat as her mother says that, a chill passing over her. _...So I was - gone, for five whole years._ "...I can't even imagine how that must have felt," she says quietly, holding her mother's hand.

"No," she agrees quietly. "You can't."

"After...when you came back...it was the happiest day of my life. We were on a cruise, in the middle of a storm. There was a song playing, I think. It was..." She pauses, then chuckles. "Danse macabre. We were _dancing_ again...and then...I felt it." Your mother squeezes your hand. "I felt _you_ inside me again, all at once. It was the sweetest pain I'd ever suffered."

"We were so far out at sea, and the pain was so sudden, my body wasn't ready. I couldn't push you out in time. And I think, that's why..." she trails off. "And then you were in my arms. Healthy and screaming with those beautiful lungs of yours. Perfect in every way. My baby. You came across death itself to be with me, and I knew that nothing would ever keep us apart again."

"...That's why what?" Rich asks softly, not wanting to push her mother but feeling suddenly quite disconcerted at the part she seems to have left out. _If she couldn't- push me out in time, then what...?_ "..." She lets out a sigh at her mother's conclusion, feeling a somberness come over her. "...That's a nice story, mom," she says quietly. "Sad at first, but... happy, in the end."

"Why you...can't see the world the same as the rest of us," your mother sighs. "I wasn't strong enough. I'm sorry...I'm sorry."

Rich starts at that admission of her mother's. _So is that why- the Great Dust is why I can't see - but- I **can**,_ Rich thinks, feeling a chill as she remembers. _Somehow I could see that day I was born, again. Looking back at it, into the past. The first time I was able to really see._

"...You did the best you could, Mom," she says, her mother's words feeling bitter on her tongue. "And- I might not be able to see like _you_\- but I _can_ see, now," she insists, strength in her voice. "I was even able to see that day, somehow... remember? I told you and- and Father, when I woke up in the hospital. The vision of storms," she says. "So- I think that it turned out all right - _I_ turned out all right, in the end," she says. Even though a small resentful part of her can't help muttering _No thanks to you_. But for different reasons than her mother fears.

"You did...despite everything..." she closes her eyes, groaning softly. "You did..." Your mother falls asleep.

Rich lets out a tired sigh as she registers her mother's breathing slow, fall into the pattern of sleep. Gently, she disentangles their fingers, and stands up, before wavering. She still had a few minutes left, of the ten. She could... stay here for just a little longer. So she sits back down, waiting in silence until they come to take her back out.

Eventually, you are ushered quietly out. Dr. Oyama comes to see you, a small man with an aura of buzzing excitement, he shakes your hand firmly and bows his head. "A pleasure to meet you at last. It has been many years since we've met, Richard."

He pauses to unwrap a piece of candy from his pocket, then offers one to you - it smells of artificial sweeteners masquerading as cherry flavor.

_We've met?_ Rich thinks with a blink as the doctor lets that on. _...Anyway, his aura doesn't look down... that's a good sign, right?_ "Nice to meet you, Doctor Oyama," Rich says, wrinkling her nose as the candy is unwrapped. "Thank you, but... I don't have much of an appetite," she deflects, waving it off. "And I prefer Rich, if that's all right." She pauses. "How does it look for my mother and Dex?"

"Rich it shall be," Oyama pops a candy in his mouth, sucking softly. "Mmm, your mother is in good health. No internal injuries, merely superficial ones for the most part. With grafts and laser touch-ups, she'll hardly scar at all. The biggest problem for her will be..." he pauses, proceeding gently, uncertain of your disposition. "Psychological. Injuries of that sort, under those circumstances, take a toll that medical science can only assist so far with. I'm recommending that she seek psychological services with the Ravencroft Institute once she has had time post-discharge. As for Mister Poindexter…" his aura brightens again. "Well, it's quite exciting, actually. I hadn't anticipated Missus Fisk to be so...bold, with his treatment."

"...Third-degree burns are superficial?" Rich asks, raising her eyebrows, but nods slowly at what he says about the treatment. "That's good, at least." Her face falls as he mentions the psychological damage, letting out a sigh. "...Yeah- yes. We're all feeling a toll right now, I think," she says, before biting her lip. "...I'm not sure how eager my mother will be to attend therapy."

She gives him a blank look at what he says about the 'bold treatment', now starting to feel an entirely new kind of worry. _'Exciting' isn't quite the answer I was hoping for._ "What kind of treatment did he end up getting?" she asks, as neutrally as she can. "It sounds like it would have been... something new? Uh- exciting?' she says, stumbling over her words a little.

"Oh, yes," Oyama beams at you. "We have the best medical technology available. Even the nerve damage and muscle trauma you would expect have been mitigated to near negligible levels, thanks to it. Fortunately for your family, you can afford such expensive procedures."

When you press for answers on Dex's condition, Oyama pauses for a moment, his better sense weighing with a clear desire to _brag_ about his latest project. Fortunately for you, sense does not win out. "Well, you see - Mister Poindexter's decaying faculties have long been a subject of discussion between Missus Fisk and your late father - may he rest in peace. The cranial trauma he has suffered provided an interesting opportunity to solve several problems at once." Oyama's teeth click, crushing the candy in his jaw. "Firstly, the replacement of several nerves and brain stem segments with state-of-the-art receiver/transmitters that send reflex information faster than the body could normally process them, heightening his ability to react to threats. Secondly, the reinforcement of his skull and limbs with a new type of artificial metal known as _cognium,_ which alongside bolstering bone durability serves as an excellent conductor for electrical and radio signals such as the ones his implants will be sending. And thirdly..."

The doctor chuckles. "Well, we have replaced his hands with new ones. Better ones. When he awakens, Agent Poindexter will be learning how to shoot with four hands instead of two."

"...Fortunately, yes," Rich says with a mix of gratefulness and guilt, remembering Elektra's pointed words about her family's wealth. She nods her head at his words about her father, eyebrows climbing higher on her forehead _...Okay, I'm really not liking the sound of this._ Her suspicions are confirmed and more at what Oyama says to brag about Dex's operation, and her eyes widen at what he says, mouth falling open. _Oh, what the hell..._ "A. Wow. That certainly is a - bold treatment, to say the least," she says, thrown for a loop and feeling somewhat sick. "And... _all_ of this was my mother's idea?" she says, with an increasingly sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

_...Couldn't have at least waited to **ask** Dex or anything. Had to turn him into some kind of cyborg without his consent. God._ The calm feelings she'd felt from being by her mother's side, a moment ago, are rapidly evaporating.

Oyama nods. "Ah, yes. She recommended the treatment shortly after awakening from her own."

"In fact, come to think of it, I should probably get back to the operating room. His body should have recovered enough by now for the larger steps to begin," he gives his leave and turns to walk away.

Rich processes that about her mother for a second, blood starting to boil for reasons entirely unrelated to the Guardian Devils. She takes a second to react when Oyama speaks up again and starts to walk away, before doing a double-take. "Uh." Rich says, wincing as he mentions that. "I- don't suppose _he's_ awake or anything? How... far into the treatment _are_ you, right now?" _Is there any way I can call this off? Or try, at least?_ But with that being quite unlikely, she will head back out towards the waiting room, a twisting feeling in her stomach. After a second, she stops in place, and changes course. _I think I need some air._

"Unfortunately, the procedure _does_ require the patient to be conscious to some degree. However, he is immobilized to prevent any...complications...while we operate. We are just about to begin on his hands! Very exciting."

Leaving you with that nightmarish proclamation, Oyama slowly vanishes from your sight...and you head to the rooftops to clear your head.

Rich feels a dawning horror as Oyama gives even more detail about the operation, now starting to feel genuinely nauseous. _Oh, god. Oh, god, Dex, why- I'm sorry..._

Her hands grasp uselessly at her sides for a second before Oyama walks away, and she heads slowly up to the rooftop, feeling very much like she's failed him. She goes out onto the roof, taking a deep breath of the wintry air, before starting as she registers the other aura sitting on the edge.

"Uh. Hello?" she says, caught off guard and wary now.

The figure starts, head sharply rising up as you detect something...strange...in the figure's aura. He raises a hand to his face quickly, wiping the salty smell of tears away, and rises to his feet. "Oh. Hello there. I wasn't expecting anyone else to come up here." His voice is smooth and soft, like the sheets of your bed. A touch of a Brooklynn accent in his syllables. "Looking for some time alone?" He asks knowingly.

"...Something like that," Rich says, watching the man more guardedly as she picks that strange something up from his aura. The scent of tears gives her pause, though. "...Sorry to interrupt," she says, exhaling. "Did you... lose someone too, tonight?"

"Hah. Yeah, I, uh...lost a couple people, actually." The boy, barely older than you are, swallows and clears his throat. "You're the one. Rich Fisk, right?" Your special sight focuses in on the strangeness you picked up off his aura...and you _recognize_ them. Three marks, one in the shape of a blade on his arm. The other, a teardrop underneath his eye. And the final, an insignia of fire on his left palm. Mystical tattoos - like the ones you'd seen once on a Guardian Devil. "...you still with me, buddy?" He asks uncertainly, seeming a little wary of you now.

Rich feels her blood run cold as her sight picks up the Guardian Devil's tattoos on him. Her jaw sets, and she starts approaching the boy. "Yeah. That's me," she says in a low voice. "How about we even that out, since you know who I am? Who are _you_ supposed to be?" she asks, tilting her head, eyes cold and hard.

"I'm Anthony. Anthony Weiss." He pauses, waiting as if expecting a reaction from you. "I prefer Anton, though, if you don't mind."

"...so you can walk without a cane? That's...pretty impressive, honestly. Wow. How did you learn that?"

"Anton, huh," Rich says quietly. "Sure. Don't mind at all." She continues walking towards him, slowly but deliberately. "I had a very good teacher," she says simply at his question. "...So, where were you last night, Anton? At Central Park?"

Anton seems confused. "Me? No. I was at home."

Rich is going to attempt to grab his left arm and twist it around to put it in a lock behind his back.

She succeeds easily, ignoring his startled yelp as she brutally torques his arm into a painful locked position. "H-Agh! The hell are you - "

"Nice tattoos," Rich tells him, low and angry. "...Why don't you tell me about your friends, and where you got them."

"...nice hold," Anton replies coolly, no longer panicking but placid as a lake's surface. "Wing-Chun, huh? Interesting martial art for a _blind_ kid."

"You know your stuff," Rich says, tightening her grip at that reaction from him. "Seems like _both_ of us have more going on than shows on the surface." She grits her teeth. "Why did you people kill my father? Try to kill- _all_ of us, really."

"...You _really_ have to ask me that? I need a _special reason_ to want to kill you and your family?" Anton laughs, just a bit shakily. "Please. You know exactly why we wanted to kill you. You've shown yourself too smart to play stupid now."

"My turn," he eyeballs you as best he can from your tight hold on his arm. "You gonna kill me, Richie? You got that in you? How far does the apple fall, I wonder?"

Rich hisses out a breath at his words. "...Fine. All right. I know you had plenty of reason," she growls. "But you killed people who had nothing to _do_ with us, too." His question gives her pause, and she clenches her teeth. "...I didn't kill the others who I fought last night," she says. _...at least I didn't **try** to. For the most part. Right?_ "You, though... I'm not so sure. From where I'm standing..." she lets that wording sink in for a minute. "I might have a good case for self-defense. Since you want to kill me, don't you? Not _just_ my father, or my mother. _Me_."

"..." Anton's aura registers surprise - surprise, arcing over the current of boiling _hate_ he feels for you, for your very existence, in this moment. He seethes silently, teeth gritted.

_...I probably should kill him, now,_ Rich registers distantly. _I've let him know a lot about me. Enough that it would be really dangerous, if I let him go._ _...But do I want to kill someone just because it's convenient? That's what my father would do, I'm pretty sure. But I don't... revenge is one thing, but this..._

"Why do you hate _me_ so much?" she asks quietly, not expecting much if any of an answer, but she has to ask. "_I_ didn't do the things my father did to this city."

"...Hehehe. Hehehehehe." Anton giggles. _"Hahaha. HAHAHAHAHA!! _Is that what you think? You think you're any better than he was?"

"You sit here, with your knee on my back and my arm behind my head, thinking about how you'd like to shove me off this roof. You tell yourself you're different from your daddy because you'll think twice before you murder me." Anton twists his neck at an angle that must be painful, just so he can stare into your sightless eyes. "You've done _so much_ to this city just by _existing,_ you blind _freak."_

"You murdered my father. You murdered my mother. Not Fisk. Not your mother. _You."_

"...What do you mean?" Rich asks, blood running cold at his laughter, gritting her teeth at his words. "You- that's _bullshit_. How could my only _existing_ have caused all of that?" she asks, eyes wide. "Unless you mean that I killed them _last_ night... I don't even know what you're _talking_ about."

"Of _course_ you don't!" He spits. "You got to live the high life, didn't you? Weaned and fed off everything your rich _bastard_ parents could buy you, huh? You didn't even _have_ to look at the blood everything you ever _bought_ was taken from. You ever wonder how many people had to die for you to enjoy the life you have, kid? Do you ever wonder how many people have died because you were _born?"_

"..." Rich feels the words catching in her throat at what he's accusing her of. "...I am _not_ responsible for the lives that my parents lived. They didn't even _let_ me find out what they were like for most of my life!" she insists, teeth clenching hard. "I- shut the hell _up_, will you?! This is not on _me_! I deserve to live the same as _anyone_!"

"SO DID MY FATHER!" Anton screams at you. "SO DID MY MOTHER! AND THEY DIED BECAUSE OF _YOU!"_

"B-because..." he chokes back something that once could've been a sob. "Because of you...they killed him. For a fucking insult. He worked for your family for five years and they killed him. And then they came for me and my mom. They killed her. They tried to kill me. Because the Kingpin doesn't leave loose ends."

He laughs bitterly. "You ever hear anyone complain about babysitting a blind kid? Real dick move, isn't it? That Poindexter buddy of yours sure thought so."

"..." Rich has no idea what Anton is getting at for a long moment, before it _clicks_ and her eyes go wide. _Oh._ **_Oh._** "That's- that's not-" she says, stammering now. "I didn't know- I didn't have any idea they would have _killed_ people- that _Dex_ would have... I..."

["LIAR!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSgfJDFhaZk) Anton screams - and your senses scream a warning at you, too, and your prophetic sight glimpses _blades_, a half-dozen of them, erupting from the older boy's skin from all angles, one of them slicing right for your forearm!

The blades run along the slash-resistant material of your suit, cutting open the fabric but stopping at the reinforced lining!

Anton laughs. "Who was killed for you to get that suit, punk? Think they had a family too?"

"Shut _up_!" Rich screams, reeling at his words and at the blades. Are they coming from all over his body, or is there a clear part that she could try to hit?

They extend forth from his body and then retract just as quickly!

Rich punches Anton right in the face - he retaliates by spouting more of those body-blades from himself and thrashing in an impressive attempt to get free - but neither of your efforts succeed, though your cries and roars echo across the rooftop.

_Damn it, he's strong,_ Rich thinks with a wince as she manages to hold on through Anton's thrashing. _And those blades of his keep coming out... I can't hold back here, but I- what do I do-?_ She hesitates a second, before wrapping her free arm around his throat in a chokehold, trying to choke him out instead of hitting him again or throwing him.

Lacking proper technique on how to do so, though, she instead decides to just hit him in the throat, hoping the suit can let her take more of the blades.

Anton gags as your blow nearly crushes his throat in, coughing and sputtering - and his lolling tongue abruptly transforms into a silvery blade that cuts across your side, cutting deep into the flesh and hampering your ability to move properly.

"Agh-!" Rich gasps out in pain.

The pain, combined with Anton's skillful and powerful efforts to break your hold, force you to let go - and he bolts up to his feet, suddenly free!

You throw a hard punch that cracks his nose, the points of his hedgehog-like defenses glancing off the stronger portions of your suit. Anton snarls, uncoiling a whip of gas-smelling cable from his sleeve. Turning around, he lashes it out toward an adjacent rooftop, looping around a chimney, and prepares to jump!

He turns to split a mouthful of blood at you, grinning. "Be seeing you, _Richie."_ Then he turns and leaps off the roof, the cable of his whip pulling taut as he slams into an apartment complex's fire-escape and begins running down it, headed for the street!

Rich growls as Anton leaps away, blind eyes tracking his movement as she briefly considers jumping after him, before discarding it as a very bad idea. She bolts for the stairs, heading back down into the hospital instead.

You leap down the stairway, running down covered in sweat and blood!

_I can find one of our security. They can track him down... but..._ Rich slows her steps, feeling sick suddenly. _If it's our people..._ Starting to move again, she is going to force herself to walk more calmly (with her cane) once she reaches an area with people, and try to find Lonnie, if she still can.

You pick up your cane from its position by the stairs to the rooftop and master your gait, searching through the teeming auras of the hospital until you find Lonnie - the one that, like his father, resists your ability to see into his spirit. Lonnie notices you right away as you approach him, mouth twitching as he takes stock of your ruffles and sliced clothes and bleeding side. "...someone got to you." He surmises with terrible calm.

"...There was a Guardian Devil. Upstairs. On the roof," Rich says quietly, nodding. "He attacked-" She hesitates. "...Okay, technically I attacked him first, but- we fought, and then he ran off." She bows her head, teeth gritted. "Lonnie, your dad... you and your dad wouldn't... kill people just to tie up loose ends. Right?" she asks uncertainly.

"..._I_ wouldn't," Lonnie replies quietly.

Rich feels a chill as she hears him say that. "...Damn it," she whispers, pressing a hand to her forehead.

"Hey, here," Lonnie approaches slowly, careful not to startle you. "Let's sit down and get someone to look at you, yeah? You look pretty banged up."

"I... I can wait a minute," Rich says, lowering her hand. "Look, Lonnie- this guy, I... don't know if it's still possible to find him. But if it's my family who _tries_... I'm worried about how many people might get hurt, in the crossfire," she whispers. "I don't know if I can do anything on my own, but... you and Neena..." She shakes her head searchingly.

"...Yeah. Alright, I feel you." Lonnie gives you a thumbs-up, realizes you can't see it, wonders if you actually _can_ see, then kind of lets his hand just fall down. "Don't worry about it. We'll do what we can, eh? Nobody wants another Guardian Devil running around."

He pauses. "Do you...want me to keep quiet about how I heard about this guy, then?"

"Okay," Rich says, exhaling heavily. "...He said his name was Anton- Anthony Weiss, but I don't know if that was real." She pauses too. "That... yeah. That might be for the best," she mutters, shifting her feet. "Thank you. ...I wonder if I can get looked at by a doctor _without_ making a big fuss of it."

"Here, I'll snag some supplies and we can just stitch you up privately," Lonnie replies quickly, already hustling to grab some supplies. He trades a few words with a nurse, who nods at his explanation and gives him what he needs without fuss - normally surprising, perhaps, but the Cages have a good reputation and he had coached it as a minor injury for a bodyguard rather than a bleeding teenager. Lonnie finds a room for the two of you and sits you down, washing his hands and stretching gloves over them. "Yeah, the doc's about to _operate..."_ he murmurs.

The two of you stay together for some time, quiet and somber as Lonnie's deft hands go to work sealing up your body with the gentleness of a man who knows how easily good things can be shattered.

[Shattered and never to be reclaimed.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6dUs3sSWYU)


End file.
